MobilizedTV spoke with Telegent VP of marketing Diana Jovin about the company’s history, current position in the industry and where its product might fit in North America.

MobilizedTV: Tell us a bit about Telegent’s role in the mobile TV market.

Jovin: When we shipped our first product, what we shipped was a little bit at odds with the market. Our principal market was considered a little unconventional. Two years ago, in the global landscape, most people in the mobile TV industry hung their hats on DVB-H. The model was that operators would invest in the new broadcast ecosystem and would acquire spectrum and deliver mobile TV content to the consumer.  To do this, you have to acquire spectrum on the airwaves, create towers to distribute over the spectrum, then acquire the right to content you can distribute. It’s a pretty hefty investment. The idea was that consumers, because they loved TV, would sign on. But, in Europe, those offering subscription services found that consumers weren’t willing to pay.

MobilizedTV: DVB-H never took off in the U.S., or anywhere else, I believe. What was its fate in Europe?

Jovin: It didn’t materialize. Meanwhile, against all these pilots, we came out with a technology that, when manufacturers built it into the cell phone, allows you to get free-to-air TV. Consumers get not only content for free, but the same content they get when they turn their TV on.  Consumers appreciate the same experience on the handset that they get on TV: to press one button and get the show they want. If they’re not at home, they can watch it on their phones.  In subscription TV, people have to get used to a different guide of programs. You have to convince them they need something they hadn’t had before.

MobilizedTV: How did the numbers pan out? Do they support the contention that free-to-air mobile TV is more of a draw?

Jovin: Within the first two years, we shipped 50 million mobile TV antennas, OEMed by handset manufacturers.  In 2009, the research firm Forward Concepts said that Telegent’s antennas were involved in 52 percent of the mobile TV in the world. In the first year, the handsets were largely in retail markets in Southeast Asia and the Middle East where people buy the handset first and then choose the carrier. Then it went to Latin America, where handsets are offered in carrier portfolios and retail markets.

MobilizedTV: Why do operators like it? Doesn’t it offer competition to its own content offerings?

Jovin: It’s a free feature on a handset and a way to retain and attract subscribers.

MobilizedTV: What bout the fact that this is an analog mobile TV offering. Much of the world is already digital.

Jovin: We’ve focused on emerging markets, where analog broadcast TV is widespread and will continue to be widespread for some time to come. We’ve been working on digital technologies, and we’ve created a single chip PC TV receiver that enables netbooks, lapbooks and so on, so consumers can receive free-to-air TV broadcasts, supporting both the analog and DTV-H digital standard.

MobilizedTV: You’re not in the U.S. market and, of course, in the U.S., the broadcasters have launched their own free-over-the-air mobile TV standard, ATSC.

Jovin: The U.S. market is interesting. The industry has been supporting Mobile DTV-H standard, based on the ATSC standard. It requires some capital investment on the part of the broadcaster, who has to split or multiplex the signal to get the mobile signal. It’s much closer to our strategy of the free-to-air. On the other hand, because it does require participation from the broadcaster, it makes adoption a little more tricky. Consumers won’t receive the the full slate of programming.

The free-to-air strategy will be more successful than subscription. This model can pave the way for getting consumers to watch TV on other devices–and then you have a platform to deliver premium services and related, complementary services.  There’s been a lot of attention given to monetizing mobile TV based on content delivery. There is a lot of potential in monetizing mobile TV around free-to-air mobile TV as a content platform.

MobilizedTV: Will Telegent enter the U.S. market?

Jovin: To be honest, Telegent hasn’t made a statement about the U.S. market. We are pursuing a strategy of supporting free-to-air TV on handsets. We haven’t made a public statement if we will enter the U.S. market and if so, the time frame.

As a technology provider, we started working with providers focused on Asia. Because the model of handset adoption is largely retail markets, the innovation cycle is much shorter than what you see in the U.S. You have a shorter handset churn; people replace their handsets much more quickly.  People carry multiple SIM cards and pop them in and out. In the U.S., we have four carriers that control handset availability to the consumer. You have to have a relationship with the carriers, and because people sign 2-year contracts around phones, people hold on to handsets for much longer. If you’re a technology provider and you’re developing a strategy, development happens in the Asia market first and you can draw conclusions as to why that is.

MobilizedTV: What lessons can we in the U.S. draw from what’s happening in the global Mobile TV marketplace?

Jovin: What’s interesting to observe is the speed at which free-to-air mobile TV technology has taken hold in the global market. We announced in late 2009 the point in time when we achieved the 50 million milestone; we don’t comment on number of units anymore. When you look at the Forward Concepts report, it gives you a sense of how prevalent analog broadcast is. Analog TV will persist some time in the global marketplace. The speed at which the technology has been adopted gives you a sense of what consumer preferences are. That’s a message that can be applied globally. Free-to-air mobile TV has a role to play in emerging and developed markets alike.

Barzilay described FLO TV, a subsidiary of Qualcomm, as a subscription-based service but noted that the company has gone “direct to consumer” with a personal TV device, a small

FLO personal TV

screen without a phone. “We’ll also be bringing FLO TV to automobiles,” he added, explaining that FLO TV is not delivered through the 3G network but rather UHF spectrum.

Babelgum, said Lawson, is a mobile (and Internet) TV platform, supported by advertising, that distributes licensed and original content. Babelgum offers four channels: comedy, film, Metropolis and music. “We’re smart comedy for smart phones,” says Lawson who notes the company is launching into branded entertainment.Launched earlier this year on an iPhone app, Babelgum is also moving onto the Android platform. Lawson reported that the company has had its first viral hit with Jersey Shore, which has small children re-enacting the MTV reality show of the same name. There are four channels: comedy, film, Metropolis and music. Smart comedy for smart phones, is what we call it. See below for Jersey Shore video

Warren addressed best practices for monetizing mobile video. “At FanTrust Entertainment Strategies, we capitalize on ways you can market and monetize mobile video,” said Warren, noting that the company has worked with Nokia, Orange, and Bell, among others. “We also work with TV producers and other rights holders interested in multi-platform deals. I like how fans monetize, socialize and interact with mobile entertainment.” Among her “case studies,” she showed the Bump! gay travel guides and mobile video apps and a mobile geo-location game for former webisode series/current SyFy hit Sanctuary. For both projects, they worked with Metranome.

“Be prepared to adapt your mobile strategy as you get feedback from fans,” said Warren. “They enjoy upgrades and changes. We have to live through recommendations and true collaboration with fans.”

Chindamo introduced his company, Fun Little Movies that licenses and produces short form entertainment, with 150 series in its library.  Fun Little Movies content is on the top deck of Sprint, part of the Babelgum platform and distributed throughout Asia. Chindamo showed an example,  Be-Wildered, which was produced for Planet Green, as a way to bring comedy to the brand and reach out to females.

Chindamo asked the panelists to describe how their company makes money with mobile content. FLO TV is a subscription service, which is paid to the mobile carrier or FLO TV itself. “We take a share of that, some of which goes to the build and maintenance of our broadcast network,” said Barzilay. “And some goes towards licensing the content. There is also an advertising component, but we don’t have the scale to make that too meaningful. At present, we tend towards the subscription side.”

A privately funded company, Babelgum does display advertising, said Lawson. “In 2010, we’ll do our first branded entertainment deal,” she said. “I’m a huge fan of it;  I believe it’ll be our entire ecosystem and work on mobile and online.”

Warren said her company makes its money “through a traditional old school model which is management consulting.” “On the mobile side, the most important thing that rights holders have done is choose a mobile app provider that knows how to build and bake the marketing into the app itself,” she said. “You have to work hand-in-glove with them and tell them your goals, so they can create something that can make that happen.  And you have to be willing to share your business strategy to make that successful.” Sponsorship has also been successful, she added. “One client spent $30K on an app and within a week attracted a $300K sponsor,” said Warren who declined to name the client. “Part of it was the content partner they had. The app provider worked with the rights holder to tell them how to sell the sponsorship and was in the room where the sponsorship pitches were happening. You have to be a real partner with your app provider.”

Fun Little Movies licenses its content, said Chindamo, but “those are small dollars.” “The revenue share checks aren’t colossal wins,” he said. “The larger dollars come from working with advertisers and sponsors. We were paid an upfront licensing fee from Planet Green, for example, and then as advertisers sign on to that series, we’ll be able to aggregate more money towards it.”

“You need a network,” said Lawson. “Nine times out of 10, there has to be media around the content that has to be delivered and measured, so sponsors have an ROI. Having a partner like Babelgum can insure that. We have the infrastructure already built for you, and that’s one of the reasons why you partner with a company like us.”

Barzilay noted that FLO TV has a deal with Rentrak which does its viewership analytics. “We’re able to provide minute-by-minute [analytics] and work with content providers to optimize things,” he said. “Some things are counter-intuitive. Our primetime, for example, is during the day, lunchtime, as opposed to TV, where it peaks at 10 pm. On FLO’s mobile service, it climbs at 11 am, peaks at 1 pm, stays high throughout the day and then go down.”

Chindamo asked FLO TV’s Barzilay and Babelgum’s Lawson how content creators can help them make money. “You start with larger brands to drive a subscription service,” said Barzilay. “People are drawn to larger brands, to stay connected to Fox news or a football game. But with the younger demo, we think there is an audience for short-form content that can help engage people. This is an incredibly cross-platform ecosystem nowadays;  they can connect to the content on mobile, online, on TV and shift back and forth. The immediacy of the mobile platform and that everyone has it are the distinguishing elements. We’re always with you when you travel. Every content provider is interested in pushing the content through all the different platforms.”

“Amen to that,” said Lawson. “I believe we must take advantage of this awesome device. I know what I am programming and what I’m contracting people to do is event-based, is exclusive, is celebrity. We are disruptive, satirical and high brow brand if you will. Those are the kind of people we attract to smart, edgy comedy. What will be disruptive enough you’d like to watch on the phone? It’s live, exclusive, moments in time. That’s what I’m looking for: big experiences, talent and celebrity. And whenever we have brand opportunities that can work.”

Warren said there are three types of mobile content that can be monetized now. “Linear content; the interactive or rich media content which has traditionally lived on the internet but also the mobile phone; and then the social/intellectual property,” she enumerated. “Companies who do well in this space have social games that travel across all the social networking spaces. You have to monetize on all three fronts.”

What delivers the biggest numbers to FLO TV, said Barzilay are events like the Ohio vs USC football game, the Presidential inauguration, and kids TV. “Edgy comedy and animation does best in short form content,” he said. “Small consumable episode size is suited to the mobile platform. With animation, the vividness of colors help it pop.”

Heinsen, noting that smart phone penetration is exploding, said that with greater penetration of these devices, we’ll be seeing more rich media. He also brought up the notion of transmedia. “That’s the future ,” he said. “The audience will engage you wherever they live. And this [mobile] is a bridge to that.”

From Chicago-based ViralMesh, a mobile marketing platform enabling clients to add 2D barcodes, picture or text tags to any object, Aamer Ghaffar addressed mobile marketing and content.  “The challenge we address today is the majority of the content out there isn’t created for mobile, ” Aamer Ghaffar said. “Make a 30 second trailer or 2 minute video of content for mobile, and it’s not a great user experience. That’s one of the biggest pain points. If I have to look at the last couple of years, consumers have been interacting more with promotional [material] than content.” He described ViralMesh’s Snap& Send product, in which the consumer takes a snap of an image and then can send it. “Snap&Send is the future,” said Heinsen. “Imagine a 3D barcode on your movie poster, so if you grab that code, you can get a trailer and then send it to your friends or post it on various sites.” ViralMesh also created a mobile-enabled billboard in Chicago to reach out to the fan base of musician Kanye West. “If the consumer sends in a picture or text, they could enroll to get free tickets or play a video,” said Ghaffar “We ran it for 45 days and we got an almost 17 percent click-through rate.”

GPS-enabled cell phones will also open up a wide variety of marketing and content creation strategies said Jeff Knowlton who has three examples of how this works on his website. “We know where you are within 15 feet,” he said. “So we can deliver content to your location.” How does a producer create content using GPS capabilities? “First, you have to think about how GPS will help you,” said Knowlton. “Take The Sopranos. People want to go to New Jersey and see all the locations where it’s shot. If you’re David Chase, you own the content. Contact me and I can put that in a form that would fit on mobile and you could sell The Sopranos Tour for $10. When people hit the street corner where a specific scene was shot, the phone’s GPS knows, the screen pops up and you’ll see the TV segment that was shot right there, while you’re in that physical space.”GPS hotspots are a 12 to 14-foot square. “Once you walk into that square, the playback of media is triggered,” said Knowlton.

Digital marketing consultant Miguel Gonzalez stressed that counting clicks is not a useful way to add up ROI (return on investment). “Mobile is the enabling device constantly in the possesstion of every consumer,” he said. “Instead of counting clicks, look at engagement metrics to measure how you’re doing in the marketplace.” The notion of “Depth on Demand” comes from that observation. “It’s no longer thinking of ‘I have a property I have to drive consumers to’,” he said. “Consumers are in a variety of consumption modes, from superficial to deep, where they want to enage interactively. The post-purchase experience is even more valuable as Social Media and Word of Mouth spread. Therefore atomize and distribute the content as “social media objects” in advertising units, landing pages, microsites, sponsored content modules, viral streaming videos, apps and more. And put ’share this’ on everything. By sharing it, they’re becoming the proponents of the content. And that’s the most persuasive form of marketing.”

Heinsen said that many people ask him if they need to get an app. “People know there are 100,000s of apps for the iPhone,” he said. “We’re going to be at $6 billion worldwide spent on apps by 2010. Is creating an app a way to get your feet wet?” Aamer answered with a resounding yes. “The question boils down to what is the right price to pay,” he said. “More and more of our clients say they want an app for iPhone, Blackberry and Droid. That may be an investment that might not get approved. Instead, what we’ve implemented successfully is a mobile website that has a short code that can be submitted to the Apple app store, and downloaded as a short code on the consumer’s phone. The days are gone in which the app is a novelty.”

Heinsen said a WAP site might be the best way to go. “Morgan Stanley said the explosion of mobile web really isn’t the future,” he said. “As everything converges and this notion of transmedia comes into play, as broadcast viewers go to the web and phones get better, a WAP site  is designed to be seamless in the mobile space.”

Gonzalez said that  from a promotion point of view, apps can be effective as a social media object. But with a caveat. “The creative team needs to come up with i,” he said. “It isn’t just a repurposing on your existing content. It actually has something useful and relevant around the property, engaging the property. Keep in mind that there are studies that the majority of apps are downloaded, played with a few times and then abandoned. Instead of seeing that as a liability, because it’s temporary, the WAP site becomes the more permanent, resource-full destination. The app can be a very powerful social media object;  it’s a disposal promotional item that can offer entertainment, fun and is very shareable.”

Gratch said his company will build apps when the big brands ask for them. “But you need to be realistic,” he said. “There is no ROI from an app. Maybe 20,000 people will download it, and your CEO will be happy. It’s cool to see stuff running on an iPhone. But if you take a look at people in Norman, Oklahoma, there aren’t a lot of iPhones or smart phones. If you want to engage on a mobile point of view, and want to engage with people out of major urban areas, you need a bigger palette. So, apps are important thing to do, but the other part, where we start to engage people is to utilize what everyone does on the phone: talk. How about having the talent of the show make wake-up calls to fans. Or maybe we have a phone call, and at the end you can press 1 to be connected to a call center. We have voice engagement, a texting element. This sounds like we’re starting at the bare basics, but to get the most number of people engaged at a level where it’ll be a behavior they’re comfortable with and doesn’t take a lot of money to get involved, [this is it].”

“Baby steps are the way to go,” agreed  ViralMesh’s Ghaffar. Gonzalez said that if you build an ad space on mobile with a video that says click here, you’ll get very few clicks. “But if you have the simplicity of asking the consumer to send us a text and we’ll send you someting back, then you get a follow up message that continues the conversation, to get a ring tone, then next, see an exlcusive video made for the mobile screen,” he said. “Then you’re going deep, bringing the consumer with you. This is what the Kanye West mobile campaign did.”

Gratch noted another campaign, for NASCAR. “You sign up with Coors Lite, you get to know who’s qualifying and winning the races,” he said. “At the end of the TV spots, we’d tell viewers to text a word to a short code, and we got thousands of NASCAR fans. On a weekly basis,  you’d get more information, the names, as a text message and then a phone call. People looked forward to their message…and it was from a brand.”

The panelists all suggested that producers adjust their expectations of what they’ll be able to get from mobile content. “It’s not about marketing or production dollars,” said Heinsen. “Joss Whedon doesn’t care about monetization of his mobile content. He knows it is a tool of immense reach.” Just as productions think about DVD extras from the very beginning of production, said Gonzalez, producers now have to think, in a careful and premeditated way, about creating content for the web and mobile.

Beddows spoke about the mission of MEF, a global mobile organization that also has local impact and “reaches everyone in the mobile value chain.” “We can see how different parts of the space evolves,” says Beddows.”The mission is to grow the revenues of the industry across the whole value chain. There have been industry issues crop up that, as an association as a whole, we can pull in our members and publish results.”

Beddows & Snyder

Snyder noted that websites are getting hit by mobile devices every day.  “Is there content available to them?,” asked Snyder. “It’s today, it’s reality. The first thing is that you need a mobile web strategy so it can be seen as it’s accessed. Users are demanding it.”

“The three biggest advantages of mobile is the ability to go local with mobile, with awareness of geography,” said Beddows. “Mobile offers interactivity. You can interact with people. Third, it’s the most emotional device you have, and it’s on you 24/7. That is how it differentiates itself from other devices and what people should focus on.”

Kruis reported that the Red Cross raised $24 million via SMS messages for Haiti already, describing that as “a perfect example of the power of mobile.” “It’s all about impulse,” he said. “I see something, I want something, I want to participate in something. It allows you to do it now. Two clicks is too much in mobile.” We can also engage in a two-way conversation with the consumer, addced Kruis. “That’s the beauty of mobile,” he said. “Unlike a mouse tethered to a PC, this one is tethered to your pocket.”

The most important thing in planning a mobile campaign is to ask what’s in it for the consumer, said Seelig. In a ringback tone campaign, it’s a reduced rate of telephone costs. “The consumer listens to an ad instead of the phone ringing,” he explained. “Then it’s important that the advertisement is relevant to the consumer, so you don’t target him or her with irrelevant information.”

Kruis observed that advertising on the mobile phone is a growth area within advertising networks.” At this point, the CPMs are relatively low,” he said. “I think what’s really of value is post-click conversion. It’s all about what’s beyond the click. Then the CPMs will go up and therefore you can start monetizing your content.”

Beddows said mobile advertising is like the mobile space in general. “We’ve seen evolving  models over the last ten years in content and monetization,” he said. “We’re seeing growing use of mobile phones, and it’s cannibalizing other media forms. What’s a consistent pattern is new announcements about monetization are always overblown, but eventually it comes around. As content owners, you need to be mindful of an array of ways to monetize in the space, whether it’s micro-payments, mobile vouchers, mobile advertising. The space has a lot of promise, but there’s a lot of complexity as well.”

Beddows notes that he likes to take other business models and apply it to new sectors. “When I think of mobile media, you content owners have a cost,” he said. “You want to create a fan base and keep them engaged. That’s a lot like how operators and mobile carriers work. Once you acquire a customer, you want to reduce churn. We’re trying to produce solutions for content owners on what the cost of acquisition of your fan base is and how do you grow it over time.”

Don’t be scared of mobile, said Snyder. “You want to get in at a point in your business that it can connect dots you didn’t have before.  Publish in a mobile channel, get your mobile website up. Or sometimes even an SMS campaign. You have a one-to-one channel, without paper involved. It’s timely, you get high conversion and there are minimal costs to talk to a consumer who’s targeted. And that’s very valuable.”

Kruis spoke about a project he worked on with the TV show Sanctuary, a webisode series that was picked up by the SyFy Channel. “We worked with them to create an app for iPhone and Blackberry,” said Kruis. “On set, they created exclusive 15 to 60 second mobile episodes with the talent, which were later distributed via the mobile app. They promoted the app through the TV show and online. Through our CMS, the video was distributed just before the TV show time. Some of it was how-to, provided clues to an online portal. The fans purchased the application, generating money, and a very high engagement rate with fans. We hope to extend the app for the next season.”

Beddows described how, when he was at FOX, for the show 24, in Finland in 2003, there was a scrolling trivia question. “You’d send in a premium SMS answer and at the end of the series there was a winner who got to fly in and spend time with Kiefer Sutherland,” he said. He also described Orange Wednesdays in the U.K. (Orange is a major carrier in the U.K.). “To encourage reduced churn for Orange, they give two movie tickets for the price of one, which you got through a mobile coupon and redeemed at the movie theater,” he said. “Before this campaign, Wednesday was the slowest night of the week for movie-going and now it’s the second busiest. So mobile can be integrated into other experiences from movies to commerce.”

Some final advice from the panelists: “Don’t make the same mistake content owners did online. Don’t give your content away for free on mobile. Not that it isn’t okay to give away some content on mobile, but you need to develop a mobile strategy.”

“What you do next year in mobile, you should have done last year. It’s not your job to find innovation in mobile, but to find business as usual. You need reach and frequency, so go to people who are in the space.”

“Look for a strategy that involves ubiquity. Make sure you have solid analytics.”

And finally, said Beddows, “If you’re going to get involved with mobile, don’t apply an online model. It’s many times for expensive to move data on mobile. It’s a completely different model. Get involved with mobile by getting involved with an expert in the space. There’s also a first-mover advantage if you can find a space. Mobile video is one example of that.”

Laurel Bernard

Bernard spoke about FOX’s work on Glee, which she called a show that transformed the process they ordinarily go through. “We knew it was important to get this show off the ground with ambassadors to take it forward,” she said. “We don’t call them fans, we call them gleeks.” We made a unique move and put the pilot episode of the show on after American Idol, knowing they wouldn’t have any more episodes until the Fall.” In between that debut and the Fall launch, they took some of the Glee cast members on the road, and enlisted people to follow the show on Twitter and now have over 100,000 followers. The show was also the most twittered show on TV this season. Facebook is another point of contact for the show. They posted videos of the Gleek tour on the site. “We’ve been video-diarying the cast since we’ve had them,” she said. The also send information and access to other leading fan sites. iTunes has the initial release for the songs; 50 have been released this way. “That’s been part of the big viralness of the show,” she said. Show sponsors they’ve worked with include General Motors and Glee gum. They’ve had a lot of proposals for a mobile application,says Bernard. “The studio is looking at many possibilities,” she said. “There’s a wide variety of ways we could create an app, with such functionality as singing into the phone. But [what happens with mobile] is really up to the studio.”

Palisades MediaGroup talked about a couple of movies: Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Men Who Stare at Goats.  Chan spoke about the challenges of marketing Zack and Miri online. “How do we play on the idea of making a porno and having the audience participate without making a porno,” he said. They made a Photoshop contest, something they do on Cracked.com every week. This contest was to come up with the worst porno title ever.

“Audience isn’t community,” said Chan. “Your audience is smart. If something looks like an ad, you can’t make them think it’s purely original content. Also, just because something matches doesn’t mean it goes. The audience can see right through it if it isn’t real.”

Their marketing work on Men Who Stare at Goats took more advantage of Facebook and Twitter, with an exclusive trailer that they also released on mobile.  “We’re making this a 360 experience now,” he says. “But it’s not a review of the movie or something so blatant.” Among their partners in this marketing campaign was Sprint Mobile.

Steve Amato, partner at Omelet, described his company as a full-service advertising entertainment company. He defined what a fan is: a core audience, a target demo, a community. “At the end of the day, fans equal money,” he said. “You deliver fans, you’re delivering money.” But it’s more challenging to deliver fans, he said, because the power has shifted to the fans. “They are everywhere, watching everything, created by anyone, on their terms,” he said.”Visibility alone doesn’t sell product or drive fans to action.” Omelet has done a lot of experimentation with solutions.

Their case study focused on creating marketing for Burn Notice. They developed the Covert Ops franchise, which puts the user into the show as a trainee under the show’s main character. It’s an interactive game experience over several missions. The missions integrated the show sponsor Saab. “We had an engaged fan base,” said Amato.  There were seven missions a week, all with original video. “It was also a way to get the user into the car,” he said. “At the end, the results were pretty mind-blowing for GM.” Covert Ops delivered 600K visits since launch by over 500K unique players, and engaged fans for 14.4 minutes per session. It also drove 25K qualified leads to the advertiser, GM.

The last presentation was from Van Vandergrift from matrixx, who showed a couple of examples of what his company has done. He showed some “historic” viral videos, including one done in 2007 for under $5K, that garnered 350,000 views in the first 24 hours. He showed a web strip on fashion that cost less than $20K and made it easy to integrate brands. “The brands got more comfortable with knowing that the video would be pixelated and wouldn’t always look the best,” he said. He showed a Coupon Mom viral video, that’s garnered lots of advertiser support. “Take the brand, integrate the message where there’s real value for the consumer,” he said. He pointed as a big success IKEA’s web series  with Ileanna Douglas and her friends, which has garnered 6 million views.

The mSpot Horror Movie App costs $3.99 for unlimited access for one month to the list of 10+ movies, which are refreshed weekly. To ensure the best viewing experience possible, the application automatically detects your network coverage – whether 3G or WiFi. Why horror? “Our marketing team found these are fun and entertaining movies,” said CEO Daren Tsui, who says his favorite titles are Zombie Death House and Alien Dead. Other titles include Dark Reprieve, Zontar, Cradle Of Fear, Stuck, Trespassers, Organizm, Driftwood, My Name Is Bruce, Alpha Incident, Blood Black, Bloody Wednesday, Brain Machine, Scarecrows, Scream Bloody Murder, Terror House, Alien Contamination, They, Evil, The Eye Creatures, The Alien Factor, The Alien Factor 2, Mum And Dad, and 7 Mummies.

“It’s ten movies at any given time, and we refresh them on a weekly basis,” said Tsui, describing the Horror Movie App. “Our editors and marketing team tend to pick movies that look like fun.”

Horror Movies App, which was created in-house at mSpot, is the first on a list of specialty movie applications that mSpot plans to launch this year. Also potentially on tap are apps for children’s content and comedy.

Although right now, the Horror Movie App is just for iPhones, Tsui reports that his team is also working on apps for Android and RIM phones. Marketing the app will be a bit of an experiment, since it’s mSpot’s first iPhone app. “We’ll find what the different levers are to do marketing on the iPhone store,” he said. “We will also look at buying some display banners and so on and to see if we can drive traffic as well.”

Launching this kind of full-length movie-based subscription service does has its challenges, particularly with the kind of content that studios are willing to license.  “As a subscription based service so you’re limited in terms of what content you can offer, especially when you’re working with the major studios,” explained  Tsui. “They’re decent titles but not blockbuster hits. At a high level, our deals are really very similar to streaming deals for VOD rental.  Traditionally we get our titles in the VOD window, right after the DVD window. A lot of the studios are becoming more aggressive, so in some cases, we get them at the DVD window, which is fantastic. You tend to pay a bit more on these deals, but those are the ones consumers gravitate towards because they’re better known movies.” Big blockbuster movies, said Tsui, “will take more work.”

In addition to mSpot’s iPhone app, the company offers mSpot Mobile Movies, currently available via the mobile Web on all four major U.S. carriers and across 50 different handset devices, including the iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile and many high-end feature phones, reaching over 40 million subscribers. MobilizedTV previously wrote about mSpot Mobile Movies here.

Meanwhile, mSpot Horror Movie app is just the ticket for a camping trip or a slumber party for kids or adults. Just crawl under the blanket and visit the App Store.

Streaming video is the highlight of the event’s coverage. “For the first time, we’re creating a companion show to what people are watching on TV,” said Elazar. “We’ll have a live stream going on parallel to the TV program. What you see on the live stream will be complementing what’s going on on TV so people can have a dual stream experience and get images of what they’re not seeing on TV.” Cameras will be placed throughout the hotel, revealed Elazar, and there will be a one-on-one interview room for select interviews with the winners. “We want to create an environment where Meryl Streep walks into your living room,” explains Elazar. “It will be like people are there.”

Partners with dick clark productions in this effort are UStream, which is powering the live stream, and Facebook, which is coordinating the interactions with hosts and celebrities.

Although live streaming video will be a strong suit of the online coverage, due to an unforeseen glitch, the planned-for streaming video coverage for the iPhone app couldn’t materialize.Going with a mobile implementation for the Globes, however, was never in question.

“This time we chose Mobile Roadie, a great company, which was able to build an app immediately,” he said. “They have a very solid platform. This is the first iPhone app for the Golden Globes, and the app allows the user to update photos, check out news from the RSS feed. We set up a YouTube channel so we can post videos of what’s happening.”

Future apps–for iPhone and other handsets–will definitely feature streaming video, said Elazar. “We chose Mobile Roadie because we know they have that capability and will be able to do so in upcoming events. The whole idea is to stream live to mobile, and we absolutely want to do that.” Future apps for RIM and Android phones will also support the live video feed.

Central focus of the online coverage is a Globes widget. Opening the week-long coverage was Golden Globes Week: Daily Update, which ran Monday Jan. 11th through Thursday Jan. 14th, featured a daily countdown of Golden Globes-related events, and updates from the executive producer, Digg.com and Mashable.com, plus retrospective content.

One-on-One with Ricky Gervais on Friday Jan. 15th is a sit-down with fans around the world to discuss the Globes. Users submitted questions through their Facebook status updates and through Ustream’s social stream. Golden Globes Live! The Day Before on Saturday Jan. 16th features  host, expert and consumer commentary on what to expect the next day, award predictions, Beverly Hilton’s preparations and interviews with celebrities and producers.

On the evening of the actual event, Golden Globes: Red Carpet Live! will be a  multi-host/multi-camera red carpet coverage including celebrity interviews and commentary on fashion, film, hair, fitness, and lifestyle.  Golden Globes Live! All Access Pass on Sunday Jan. 17th takes people inside the Beverly Hilton for backstage access including commentary on the Globes, social media updates from Facebook, press room coverage, celebrity interviews, after party access and more.

Elazar reports that dick clark productions is already starting to plan the Film Independent’s Spirit Awards.

The ATSC Mobile DTV Seminar will take place from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at the Hogan & Hartson Law Offices, Fullbright Conference Center at 555 13th Street, NW in Washington. DC

The seminar will breakdown and examine the key elements of the Mobile Digital Television. On tap is an overview of the ATSC Mobile DTV Standard (A/153) and strategies for implementation and operation of broadcast facilities, services and the status of industry testing and trials.

After opening remarks by Mark Richer of ATSC, Sterling Davis of Cox Broadcast Group will talk about broadcasters activities in moving forward with Mobile DTV. The ATSC Mobile Standard will be described in parts: Wayne Bretl of Zenith/LGE will discuss the physical layer and Rich Chernock of Triveni Digital will discuss Transport/IP. Art Allison of NAB will talk about application/interactivity, and Brett Jenkins of ION Media about presentation. Mike Jenkins of Kenwood will give an update of the Consumer of Electronics Association SIG (special interest group) on Mobile DTV.

Drilling deeper into broadcast station implementation of Mobile DTV, Jay Adrick of Harris will talk about system design with regard to encoding and multiplexing as well as transmission. Peter Mataga of Roundbox will describe coverage extension signaling and electronic service guides. Dave Benco of Rohde & Schwarz will cover single frequency networks. Last, Anne Schelle, executive director of the Open Mobile Video Coalition will describe the successful efforts of the Open Mobile Video coalition. Sinclair Broadcasting’s Mark Aitken will head the wrap-up session.

Gold level sponsors of the seminar include Harris Corporation, LG Electronics USA, RRD TV, and Thomson. Silver sponsors are Meintel, Sgrignoli, & Wallace. Other sponsors include the law offices of Hogan & Hartson.

For more information or to register to attend the seminar, click here.