Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Verizon launching a mobile streaming service

Verizon is launching an ad-supported mobile streaming service targeted at teens and millennials. It is supposed to include sports within the full launch by means of deals with ESPN and CBS, but initially will include clips from AwesomenessTV, Vice, and other online production studios.

Verizon is specifically targeting the younger audience as they are on their phones the most, and allowing the ability to share clips on social media. Verizon has recently made acquisitions of many short-form video companies and looks to use this to showcase the acquisitions. However, Verizon faces stiff competition in an already crowded field with YouTube and Sling Media.

It may be hard for Verizon to compete with YouTube in short videos, as YouTube has a strong hold on the market, but they could compete better in sports and short TV streaming. One hurdle is that when the customer is not on WiFi, these services use a large amount of data and therefore have lower usage because most phones have data caps. One big differentiation could be for Verizon to offer unlimited data usage on their app, which would undoubtedly result in higher customer adoption when not on WiFi.

Source: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/09/13/verizon-is-ready-to-go-over-the-top.aspx

2 comments:

Sonie said...

Curious if you - and any others others - feel like you'd exclusively watch content on your phone. Would a service like this ultimately suffice for your video content needs? Or would this likely be more of a supplement to your TV package and/or Netflix usage?

I would personally see it more as a supplement for now, but could see myself ultimately getting into something like this if multiple devices are supported.

Sonie said...

Curious if you - and any others others - feel like you'd exclusively watch content on your phone. Would a service like this ultimately suffice for your video content needs? Or would this likely be more of a supplement to your TV package and/or Netflix usage?

I would personally see it more as a supplement for now, but could see myself ultimately getting into something like this if multiple devices are supported.