The idea of mobile as a media platform is both very modern — by definition, it couldn’t have been conceived of before about 1985 and colour screens didn’t arrive until the mid-90s. But it’s also something that people seem to have been banging on about for ages, without anything in particular happening. At the start of every year, we’ve been reading “this year mobiles become an entertainment and information hub” in everyone’s list of predictions. At the risk of ridicule in a year’s time, I think it’s going to happen in 2011.

It was originally delivered as part of the Nokia Conversations newsletter.

Mobile is widely recognised as being the seventh mass media — after the web, television, cinema, radio, print and sound recordings. It’s also thought to eclipse each of those because of its unique advantages.

Mobile is more widely spread than any other media. There’s already far more mobile phones in circulation than there are televisions or radios. Mobile phones are found in places where they’ve never seen a newspaper.

It’s also a personal and personalisable media channel. Your phone and what appears on it is yours. Many people form intense attachments to their phones, as we’ve discussed before. And it’s always with you and — pretty much — always switched on. Increasingly, we’re discovering ways that mobile content can be contextualised to the time and location in which it’s being viewed.

So it’s very powerful stuff. Potentially.

Sadly, though, when you look at what is actually available, the experience leaves a lot to be desired. Sites that aren’t readable on mobile devices. Sites that are, but have achieved this by stripping out everything that was interesting about the site in the first place. Web-connected apps that take ages to load and don’t do as much as the websites they replicate. Even the really, really good mobile sites offer an experience that’s way behind the other ways that exist to engage with the media they present.

Why’s this? Partly, it’s because mobile is still very new — people haven’t developed the grammar of mobile media in the same way that conventions have been honed over time for other media. It simply takes time and experimentation.

Partly, it’s because of device fragmentation. A mobile site that’s made with the Nokia N8 in mind probably won’t look so good on your Nokia 3210, and vice-versa. And that’s without people’s bizarre insistence on occasionally buying models from other manufacturers…

And partly it’s because mobile is still treated as secondary by media owners. They’ve made a website — and it took a lot of time and money. Rather than starting again for mobile, they’d much prefer to repurpose what they’ve already got.

Exactly the same thing happened when the Web arrived. Media owners took their existing assets, be it words, sounds or pictures, and dumped them into HTML files. It’s taken twenty years for even a handful of websites to start taking advantage of the interaction and personalisation that the Web offers, let alone to start developing interfaces that people can actually use.

So will it take another twenty years for mobile media to develop its potential? Maybe. But the Web has matured a lot faster than it took television to mature — about 30 years. And television matured a lot faster than cinema — 40 years. We’re getting more adaptable, I think, and the inevitability and opportunity presented by new media is becoming welcome rather than feared.

I think that mobile mass media will start reaching maturity in the next two to three years. Exciting times ahead.

image credit: Kapungo

Ferriss’ stuff isn’t always popular. Like I just said, I find it hard to swallow myself. So he gets a lot of negative comments. In the article, he sets out seven principles or attitudes for avoiding getting affected by those:

1. It doesn’t matter how many people don’t get it. What matters is how many people do.
2. 10% of people will find a way to take anything personally. Expect it.
3. “Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity.” (Colin Powell)
4. “If you are really effective at what you do, 95% of the things said about you will be negative.” (Scott Boras)
5. “If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.” (Epictetus)
6. “Living well is the best revenge.” (George Herbert)
7. Keep calm and carry on.

Great advice for anyone working on websites and living on the Web generally.

picture credit: The Punk

.…Findings show that [in the US]:

Half of those surveyed said that they would turn to network television for immediate news information (NB: 66% in the UK)
The next most popular source was the radio (42%)
37% of consumers would use daily local newspapers
33% cable news or business networks
25% of those interviewed would rely on Internet sites of print and broadcast media
6% would turn to Internet user groups, blogs and chat rooms (24% in the UK)
On average, says the report, consumers are four to six times more likely to feel that traditional media is more trustworthy than emerging news sources for news they feel is most interesting.

.…For entertainment, consumers most often picked traditional lifestyle media as the most trusted source. However, Internet blogs, user groups and chat rooms were selected next most often, followed by weekly or monthly general interest and news magazines.

.…52% of the consumers surveyed anticipate they will continue to mostly trust and rely on traditional news sources. However, 35% expect they will trust and rely on both emerging news and traditional news in the future, and 13% anticipate they will trust and rely mostly on emerging media.