TxtBIG Video Messaging Service Debuts

February 14, 2006

At first glance, this news item from a group of partners in the business of mobile content delivery caught my attention as interesting and�worthy of coverage:

BT Media & Broadcast, Sparrowhawk and iO Global announce the first deployment of TxtBIG! - the revolutionary new video messaging service

And maybe it really is interesting and worthy of coverage, but I don't exactly see why. TxtBIG is being released via a demo at the 3GSM World Congress, the mobile event taking place in Barcelona this week.�Participants at the show can sample the new service by sending a Valentine's Day-themed message to a loved one with a compatible phone.

As far as I can tell, all the service really lets you do is send someone a kind of video greeting card via mobile phone, adding your own personalized text message -- kind of a mobile version of web greeting cards. Although today's press release describes TxtBIG as a "revolutionary new messaging service" and "an innovative and exciting new�opportunity for mobile operators and content owners alike," at this point�it's hard to see this as anything other than a possible�feature for a provider to add in to a bundle of mobile content services.

But maybe I'm missing something!

In its favor, the service does enjoy the involvement of some important partners: BT Media & Broadcast, providers of "digital media, content processing, distribution and data storage"; content producers�Sparrowhawk Media Limited; and iO Global Limited for mobile content delivery. One possible advantage in the TxtBIG solution is that this triumvirate of providers�appears able to offer solid end-to-end implementation of mobile content production and delivery for content originators, advertisers and service providers.

AB -- 2/14/06

Related Tags: mobile content, mobile, content, service, TxtBIG, txtbig