When it comes to tablets, the PlayBook and Galaxy are far superior in terms of hardware to the iPad, was the view of Polar Mobile CEO Kunal Gupta, but it is the content that drives usage. Gupta was part of a panel at the DCM Europe mobile summit that examined the impact of tablets and peered into the future of digital content delivery. At the recent CES show, said Mark Rock CEO of Audioboo, two things that stood out were the Connected TV phenomenon and the number of tablets being used to control TVs.
However, that was not to say that other mobile devices should be overlooked, Gupta pointed out: “The time spent on tablets is far greater but the number of times smartphones are used is greater.”
Touch is an important element of the tablet experience, panellists agreed, making the user experience simpler and increasing engagement. Also important for tablets is the fact that they are easier to share, added Rock: They are not as private as a phone. Tablets are more used in the home and they will come into their own massively with 4G.”
One key factor of tablets, said Gupta, is that it is much more of a paid content model. “A download not worth anything if no-one is buying anything. People are more aggressive with monetization on tablets than PC or smartphones.” In the future, he said, we will see optimized content streams for tablet. “There should be more long form content - the tablet is more of a lean back experience. PCs require more photos and bandwidth hungry content.”
Other points that were mooted were that the one to many TV broadcast model will evolve to a one to one as content owners learn ways to stay with the consumer and keep providing the content they want on the different devices they use throughout the day.
