This time last year, The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), a trade association for the mobile industry, made a number of predictions that came to fruition in 2009. It predicted that mobile applications would emerge as a content category in their own right, and with more than 24 application stores now launched and several billion apps downloaded, this has been realized.

MEF’s Top Mobile Media Trends for 2010

  • Fragmentation and variance amongst handsets and now application stores will continue to plague the industry, however the growth of applications on the Android platform will close the gap on Apple’s App Store.
  • Operator-enabling services will start to be widely deployed, facilitating the growth of rich media content that is simpler, faster and offers a better user experience.
  • Media publishers will start to experiment with micro-payments, subscription service models and alternative payment methods which challenge the operators’ dominance, with Rupert Murdoch’s decision to charge for online media content highlighting an already fierce debate.
  • Books will emerge as a new and popular content category for smartphones.
  • Technology innovation will continue, with content developers experimenting with 3D mobile video viewers and augmented reality for mobile.
  • 2010 will be the year of multiplatform dual-delivery of content including music, video and games, across mobile phones, TVs and PCs.
  • The growing consumer demand for data-heavy services will put greater pressure on networks, with flat rate data tariffs increasingly subjected to stringent download limits.

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