I went to another fine event tonight put up by the fine folks at Mobile Monday New York, “Beyond Scores. Sports Brands & Their Mobile Game Plan.”
The panel discussion was packed with good representatives from the content side as well as infrastructure. The line up included:
– Oke Okaro, ESPN
– Bhavesh Patel, NBA
– Lincoln Hochberg, MLB
– Rich LaBarca, Clearspring
– Moderator: Evan Neufeld, VP and senior analyst, M:Metrics
I appreciated that candor and openness to the responses from the panelists. The discussion lived up to its name and covered more than reading scores in an SMS message. Topics ranged from integrated marketing (an industry standard), carrier support (still a bottleneck), interface standardizations (still impeding mobile growth), and working with OEMs (they can only do so much). I’m a bit tired today, so I’ll keep it short with the best take aways.
On successful mobile initiatives:
“Boredom is a key driver.” – Lincoln Hochberg, MLB
On the mobile killer app:
“It may not be tv on your mobile… I can see things like breaking news video alerts [being the killer app]…” – Lincoln Hochberg, MLB
On mobile experimentation:
“Stick with what you know.” – Oke Okaro, ESPN
On the iPhone:
“But, it’s a closed system.” (several times) – Rich LaBarca
And the best line came from the moderator….
“… and now comes the part where we complain about the carriers…”
