The irony of course is that we’re a piracy ridden economy so the argument (for paid media) gets diluted every time a pirate hawks the latest book or movie at the traffic light. If they’re doing it, shouldn’t we? Won’t it get us MORE readers/viewers/lovers/anything? Won’t these default users shower us with riches someday? surely more users are better than less in today’s globalised hyper informed world? NO

While nothing makes it less illegal, unorganised piracy is still only a minor dent and doesnt have either the access or the many comforts that professional packaging and curation provides. It’s when the content creator promotes the notion that it costs nothing to create digital content simply because it is ‘Digital’, or even worse, throws open it’s doors to a third party (i’m thinking large benevolent colourful yuppie search company) that steals (yes, it’s theft) and serves proprietary material monetising it for piles of gold, that the entire business model needs to be reassessed.

Ask any content creator in India who’s dealt with aggregators and telcos in India. Till last year noone ever saw a dime from revenue shares, in the same time VAS (Value Added Services) revenues shot through the roof. The race to be ‘mobile’ without an indigenous business model filled third party coffers and trivilaised the very product being hawked by the digital baniyas. The race for users will do the same to proponents of ‘free’.

Next – So, if we agree it’s not going to be free, What is the model? How about a digital news-stand?

When one of the suits asked him why he wanted to wait for an year to launch his product, he replied “What's an year? It passes in a day!”

It does and it did. 2006 whizzed by.

The saliency of 2006 for the mobile sector lay in the twin mantras that I observed in the meeting mentioned above – innovation and persistence.

Mobile Application Developers, Telcos, Aggregators, Content owners and all the other parties of this myriad circus showed tremendous aggression in launching cutting edge applications and content. From booking Cinema tickets on the mobile (PVR Cinemas) to selling branded games, Fun cards (Hutch) to Songcatcher (Airtel) the year saw one cool application after the other. VAS revenues soared as TV programming seamlessly integrated SMS as the tool of choice to involve viewers in the numerous reality shows and contests. Almost all of these were well thought out and well executed products. Considering that SMS is still the largest component of Value Added Services the marriage of text Message and Reality Television was the biggest money spinner of 2006.

With Millions of direct investment by Venture capitalists, Foreign Equity Funds and other investors in the sector, 2006 was a good year.

A ‘hit' or what is known as the ‘killer app' (the suits!!) however, remained elusive in 2006. No game, application or content type achieved a cult status to match, leave alone outsell mobile versions of Cinema or cricket content. In fact a marketing manager (another suit!!) with a Telco recently put Dhoom 2 as the biggest mobile downloads blockbuster ever.

The Terrapinn Mobile Content Forum last year in Singapore was attended by companies from across the world. This is the Asia forum, I thought, what the hell are all these Americans and Australians and Canadians and Mayans (not really, but perhaps the only ones missing) doing here? Over the next few days I realized that they wanted to sell or buy in Asia because it boosted not just the bottomlines but also (and more importantly) their content libraries back home. With a huge migrant population, Asians represents a sizeable chunk of the consumers in almost every developed nation across the world. Even though everyone cribbed about the shoddy margins and lack of transparency amongst the Telocs in Asia, it didn't stop them from acquiring more Videos, Animations, Ringtones and Wallpapers in 14 different languages.

Apart from their worldwide presence what makes these guys successful is that they have redefined the words ‘Mobile content'. They sell to any Device that's mobile. To the device not the medium.

In 2007, Mobile content will mean not just content on the Mobile phone but content that's Portable, Personal, and available on the move on the device of your choice. This means more power to the copyright holders of original content. Increased distribution and non-exclusive rights sharing allow a creator to make money many times over from a single product.

Let's connect some crucial dots between the Mobile Phone and Portable Content.

In 2007:

1. This will be the biggest mobile news of 2007 – Money on Mobile.

Payment gateways on Mobiles and Payment facilitation applications are currently being tested and deployed in a phased manner. Trials at restaurants and cinema halls have shown encouraging response from the consumers.

1. Ad on mobile. Traditional media guys in T.V and Advertising have begun using short codes (SMS) for marketing as a regular and natural extension of branding activity. Though tentative this acceptance and embracing of this nascent sector bodes well for the more adventurous stuff to follow.
2. 3G remained a puzzle and a prayer for most of 2006, so my money is on a good if not very good 2.5G application that will bring all manners of content to GPRS enabled phones.
3. Over the counter content will appear as the portable devices become more sophisticated and affordable. Bluetooth, USB, MMC and SD cards will become the delivery mechanisms of choice.
4. Content companies looking at regional content will mushroom and flourish though watch out for some serious mobile gaming and content action from Bollywood guys plush with the 2006 loot.
5. Learning, Travel and Healthcare will see some of the coolest content and applications. Peer 2 Application (P2A) solutions from hospitals, hotels, hostels and your neighbourhood doctor.
6. As people grow familiar with the capability of the funky tech gadgets they own, they are going to devise ingenious ways to use the tech at their disposal to Create, Share and Store. Combine this with connectivity and we should expect another Youtube if not Google.

In India the mobile phone is definitely going to see the convergence of essential services like GPS, TV, BANKING within the same device sooner than later. The big ideas for this did not happen in 2006. There is no guarantee that they will in 2007.

But, then..

Tinfo Mobile developed an award winning application that teaches people how to read and write. The young boy (at the beginning of this piece) got the money he wanted. Probably the few things about 2006 that are likely to make 2007 interesting.