Apps battling to bring movies to your phone — from CNN Tech by Eliot Van Buskirk
Video rental companies made big moves this week in the race to deliver movies to phones.
But as compelling as [the] thought of a movie in your pocket alone may be, this isn’t just about delivering content to handset.
The companies vying for your mobile movie dollars want to tie you to an ecosystem they hope will change your habits — and loyalties — at home, at work and in between (emphasis DSC).
All of them believe that owning mobile is a ticket to winning the other three screens — computers, televisions and tablets — because viewers want to pick up on one screen where they left off on another, just as they do when reading an Amazon Kindle e-book (emphasis DSC).
If they are right, the battle plan seems fairly clear: Winning the smartphone puts everything into play and makes the mobile device the key entry point to a video-on-demand lifestyle, way beyond its mundane ability to manage rental queues on the go.
From DSC:
How this situation turns out may very well impact the delivery of educational content. The convergence continues…but more and more, providing mobile access to content is becoming key.