Video Sharing on Mobile

Youtube recently improved their mobile offering to include advanced features such as access to a large catalog of mobile video and to features that were only available on the desktop version in the past. YouTube for Mobile users can now choose from tens of millions of videos, according to the company. However, users must have a streaming-capable phone with 3G technology, which is necessary for high-speed data access over cellular networks.

Apple's popular iPhone comes with a preloaded YouTube application. But the iPhone doesn't support 3G, so the video-streaming experience can be sluggish at times. It's faster over Wi-Fi connections.

With the expanded mobile offering, YouTube users also can access their accounts, favorites, videos, channels, and directly upload and share content from mobile phones. Another new feature is the ability to rate and post comments on the go.

San Bruno-based YouTube has no immediate plans to make money off the mobile service but eventually may show ads to viewers, said Hunter Walk, YouTube's product manager. For now, YouTube just wants its audience to become more accustomed to watching video on their phones, Walker said.

Operators have realised that this can seriously impact their walled gardens and their ability to make loads of money out of the mobile users.

For this reason 3 and O2 are launching EyeVibe, a mobile video community that combines their highly successful SeeMeTV and LookAtMe! services into a single community allowing any UK mobile subscriber with a video-enabled handset to share and earn cash from their mobile video clips.

The advantage the operators have is that they will share their revenue with the people who upload their videos thereby encouraging them to use their service rather than Youtube for mobile. I am sure Google is already aware of this and working on a similar ad based scheme.

Finally, SK Telecom announced the launch of T LIVE Video Share that enables users to share images on the camera phone screen during the voice call.

T LIVE Video Share is based on IMS or IP Multimedia Subsystems, the next generation communication platform capable of at least two multimedia services. Major mobile carriers in the world such as AT&T Wireless commercialized IMS services called Video Sharing.

So far, mobile users had to hang up the phone to switch from voice to video call, but T Live Video Share users will be able to open the data call during the voice call so that they can share the images on the camera screen and start video chatting, according to SK Telecom.

To activate T Live Video Share, the sender should wait for the message that video sharing is on and push the "video call" button, and the receiver should accept the request. To return to voice call, they can either push the "video call" button again and select the "stop", or push the "end" button.

Unlike WCDMA video call, T LIVE Video Share uses the network optimized for data communications and offers video service of superior quality, the carrier said. SK Telecom expects T LIVE Video Share will expand the scope of communications beyond voice calls. Currently, the service is limited to sharing images on the camera screen, but the company will extend it into contents sharing service and enable users to share all contents in the phone such as photos, music and mobile internet connection images.