U.S. Will Never Become a Mobile-Centric Culture, Argues Third Screen Media Founder Tom Burgess

Americans traveling to the Olympics in Beijing and Hong Kong have been struck by the sophistication of Asia39s mobile devices While the Asian mobile market is technologically years ahead of the United States the cause is likely more cultural differentiation than just a lag in US technology Tom Burgess founder and CEO of Third Screen Media acquired last year by AOL PlatformA suggests culture is also the driving force behind the convergence of mobile devices with other media In an exclusive interview with JackMyers Media Business Report Burgess argues that although Apple39s iPhone has dramatically changed the American mobile market it is unlikely the US will ever become a truly mobilecentric culturequotThe Korean and Japanese markets and some of the European markets are at least culturally more advancedquot said Burgess quotThey are using their mobile devices to access digital media more than in the US In Japan the distribution of mobile phones far outweighs the distribution of homebased PCs The mobile device is the primary data access or digital access device for those cultures So those cultures tend to be more advanced as far as eyeballs using their phonesquotIndia is a particularly thriving market with 10 million new mobile phones activated every month according to Burgess While Asian and European countries seem to be making the most technological progress the development of mobile advertising largely remains within the United States When asked if he thought American culture would ever become as mobilecentric as others Burgess was hesitant to make a prediction but did emphasize the revolution caused by Apple39s iPhone citing a statistic he recently heard that 75 percent of all interactions on an iPhone are digital media access and a mere 25 percent are actual phone calls Despite the iPhone phenomenon it is unlikely the iPhone will completely take over the marketquotI don39t think everyone39s going to have an iPhonequot he said quotWhat I do think is everybody is going to have an iPhonelike device because the carriers are not ones to lie down and let another carrier get an exclusive They will come out with other devicesquot Sprint39s Samsung Instinct and Verizon39s LG Dare are examples Both feature touchscreen technology GPS navigation a digital camera and a striking aesthetic resemblance to the iPhoneThough interactions on iPhones and iPhonelike devices in the US skew away from actual talk time and more towards messaging video and web access Americans will continue to use a computer as the primary access point for digital media despite improvements in mobile technology Burgess notes many American households contain at least one working computer for every household member In Japan Korea India China and even some European countries such as the Netherlands families think of the mobile phone as opposed to the computer as the primary digital media access point This is not to say the global mobile industry is headed towards convergence either quotConvergence is driven by culturequot says Burgess quotThe reason people talk about convergence all the time is because the technology business and the media business are looking for a more efficient model I don39t think technologists and the media industry can 100 percent shape what the culture is going to do The culture really ends up shaping itself With influencers from other countries influencing each other you39re going to find people have different behaviors and different interests I don39t think convergence of devices or convergence of media access is ever going to come down to one devicequotBurgess points out the current tendency to simultaneously carry several devices Blackberry mobile phone and laptop because of the various purposes each serves as well as the variety of screen sizes While mobile devices may converge into iPhonelike devices it39s likely Americans will always have a homebased device Until mobile phones feature 13 inch foldout screens increased memory and a prolonged battery life I expect the preferred method for viewing video and digital content in the United States will remain the television or computer

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U.S. Will Never Become a Mobile-Centric Culture, Argues Third Screen Media Founder Tom Burgess

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