Blog: mobile video

Facebook announced today that it was expanding the functionality of its Live feature, enabling non-celebrities for the first time to broadcast live video to groups and respondents to events. Alongside this significant development, a new video tab has been created for the Facebook mobile app placing video discovery at the centre of the user experience for smartphone users.

Last Wednesday at the MMIX stream of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Scott Mirer, VP of the device partner ecosystem at Netflix gave a keynote speech where he shared newly acquired insights into global SVOD (Subscription Video On Demand) consumption.

So something remarkable happened at this year’s Grammys awards. Not the who, where orwhat about the winners of the world’s most prestigious music awards ceremony. Something far more profound for the future of content discovery and consumption occurred.

Periscope now plays live streams directly in Twitter feeds on iPhones, with Android and desktop functionality to come. It is a move that will change the way Twitter works and its audience uses it. Though integrating the two was a long anticipated and easily predicted, its potential impact is huge.

43% of US 16-24 year olds watch TV shows on phones and tablets. 16-24 year olds are the first generation to engage in multi-screen viewing. TV viewing viewing for the Digital Native is as much about convenience as screen preference.

Verizon’s free, ad-supported mobile video streaming service Go90 launches this week. The service will be available to all users, regardless of being a Verizon customer. The product is aimed at 18-34 year olds, the key mobile data consumption segment of now but the appeal will be far wider than that.