Multimedia and more

I recently attended a conference on the transformation of National Public Radio to a more “webcentric” news operation. We were not allowed to blog the event since it discussed internal matters, so I can’t go into specific details. But let’s just say that the entire experience was educational.

One aspect of this discussion which really caught my attention was the talk about NPRs mobile Web site. I am somewhat of a mobile smartphone fanatic. I’ve owned virtually every generation of smartphone OS since they came into existence.

Windows Pocket PC 2003

Starting with the tiny Audiovox’s SMT 5600 which ran Windows Smartphone software, a gigantic Pocket PC brick phone that ran Windows Mobile 2003, the once ubiquitous Treo 650 running Palm OS software, a T-mobile DASH which also ran Windows Mobile Smartphone 6.0, then finally the Apple iPhone.

So, hopefully without sounding arrogant, let me just say I’m very familiar with the mobile Web browsing experience. I’m also familiar with the benefits and drawbacks of 3rd party mobile software (more on that in a future post), and having perused thousands of forum posts, I also have somewhat of an impression of what mobile users want in mobile web content.

I mention NPR because their mobile site is quite impressive. It’s both WAP and iPhone compatible, it delivers the news, photos AND an innovate method for delivering streaming content: a phone call.

That’s right, the Web gurus over at NPR basically thought it would be incredibly difficult to build several streaming media services to accommodate all of the different mobile platforms out there (which is somewhat true) So their website contains a linkable phone number that can be called. By “linkable” I mean you can click the phone number and on most phones the link will initiate the phone call. On the other end is a recording of the top headlines.

Kudos for the unique method of problem solving. This definitely has 100% compatibility with all mobile phones. However as a daily mobile media consumer, I have yet to use this feature more than once. I just can’t stand to waste my precious minutes listening to news headlines — even though a majority of my conversations are mundane, and in all likelihood, pointless. I feel that a good amount of people will feel the way I do.

You don’t want to place a phone call just to hear the news.