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If you have Windows Media Mobile Player on your phone, then get ready to bookmark the following mobile website for your TV viewing pleasure.
CoolStream.mobi includes a long list of links to video sites that will launch video on your phone. Every link we checked launched quickly. The video quality and granularity varied based on the site, but that is to be expected. Check out the categories of video-related sites you can find on Coolstream.mobi:
• News
• Information
• Entertainment
• Movies
• Reality
• Lifestyle
• Shopping
• Music
• Youth
• Kids
• Sports
• Games
• Special
• Miscellaneous
• Italian Channels
• Web Radio
As the site tells you in the footer, the video sites it links to are not supported by phones on the Symbian operating system. So this is primarily for Windows phone users.
One would think that the best mobile website to search for YouTube videos would be YouTube Mobile. In this case, one would be wrong.
blueApple.mobi, a mobile video search site, offers mobile video streaming and video downloads to your mobile phone. The service searches video from other video sharing sites around the web, including YouTube, Revver, and blip.tv.
The service optimizes video for viewing on the mobile device, and works with multiple video formats, including Flash, Quicktime, and WMV (Windows Media Video).
Before downloading an entire video to your mobile phone, you can view a 20-second clip of the video on blueapple.mobi. This can be particularly useful when you are on a limited data plan with your wireless carrier.
Apparently someone has already discovered several interesting uses for the new Apple iPhone. This iPhone video first aired on Conan O’Brien. If you have not seen it yet, you need to check it out.
The mobile video announcements just keep coming. Now Cingular wireless customers will be able to watch Saturday Night Live (SNL) video snippets on their cell phones.
According to the press release, this offering requires the Cingular Video service, which is currently available on Cingular’s Media Net Unlimited package. The Media Net package costs $19.99 per month, and the SNL deal will offer access to over 100 old and new SNL clips, as well as mobile-only content that was recently developed.
This follows news earlier this week that Cingular will offer MySpace mobile content to their subscribers as well. MySpace mobile services had previously only been available through youth-oriented mobile carrier Helio.
Of all the cell phone app categories out there, mobile video is clearly among the fastest growing. While the carriers continue to control the content gates, it is just a matter of time before one of the operators lowers data access rates and throws open the doors to the mobile web.
So it sounds great, right? Watch all your favorite YouTube videos on your Verizon cell phone. Finally, the wireless carriers are opening their eyes to offering the content on the world wide — oh wait, no they’re not.We at MobileMammoth even wrote the recent announcement here. It would be great, if it were true. The fact is, Verizon and the other wireless carriers are still intent on controlling the phonetop. It’s AOL from 1995. AOL never made any sense to me. Back when you could choose between Prodigy, AOL, and Compuserve for your ISP (I’m sure I am forgetting a few), it blew my mind as to why anyone chose AOL. Rather than open the doors wide open to this new thing called the World Wide Web, AOL forced you to get through their own content suppliers first. Why? Just give me the net and get out of the way.
And so it goes with the wireless carriers. With the Verizon deal, they are pre-selecting the videos to be made available, and subscribers must pay Verizon an additional $15 per month for the V Cast service. If they really want to start seeing the data services fees roll in, they need to open up their mobile browsers to every site that works on the mobile phone, period.
Obviously, AOL was able to survive and was very successful for a few years, until people really began to understand the Web and what it had to offer. Well, we’re not in 1995 anymore, and today’s cell phone users are pretty web savvy. Whatever content deals the wireless carriers offer, the sooner they come to their “premium subscription” will never compete with the Web, the better it will be for everyone
Beginning in early December, Verizon Wireless customers will be able to watch YouTube videos on their cell phones.
The videos offered will be limited to those approved by both companies. Based on the announcement, the videos selected will be shorter in length, suitable for all ages, and appealling to the general public rather than a specific group.
The video service requires a subscription to Verizon’s VCast service, which adds about $15 to your monthly cell phone bill. VCast is available on select Verizon cell phones, so if you’re interested in adding VCast and have not upgraded your mobile phone recently, you may need to upgrade first.
Of all the cell phone apps that exist today, mobile video holds tremendous promise. The carrier networks now operate at sufficient speeds and carry enough capacity to deliver very reasonable video quality (this was not the case 3 years ago).
This is certainly not the first time video is being made available on the cell phone, but it is a sign of more to come in the very near future.
