Thwapr rethinking MMS

Multimedia messaging service hasn’t exactly been the runaway success operators expected when it emerged in the early 2000s. Compatibility and interconnection problems limited its exposure when it first launched. And even after all of the kinks were worked out, the multimedia limitations of the application became readily apparent. Compared to the enormous popularity of SMS, MMS was a bust.

But an oddly named company called Thwapr is trying to give MMS a facelift, and it’s doing so by moving multimedia messaging off of the carrier’s network and into the cloud, where Thwapr can offer rich multimedia experiences customized to each user’s handset. “You can share photos and videos without getting a dumbed-down experience like MMS,” said Bruce Goldstein, CEO of Thwapr.

Thwapr's business is built on two pillars: a free video-sharing portal for consumers and a business-to-consumer (B2C) push-multimedia service that allows brands to distribute video content to almost any device on any carrier’s network. Since the B2C service is where Thwapr’s revenues primarily originate, the company needed to create not only a ubiquitous and reliable service that could work across carriers and platforms, but also one that provided a rich media experience. MMS clearly wasn’t the ticket, Goldstein said.

MMS can only support file sizes ranging from 300 KB to 1 MB, depending on the operator or device. The video quality is often terrible, with low resolution and frame rates. MMS often supports only older video codecs, not the newer formats available in many devices' multimedia players. And on the consumer side, files could only exist on the device, limiting what a customer can send to video and pictures captured with the phone or whatever non-copyrighted content was stored locally.

To properly distribute engaging video content, Thwapr needed a platform that could support high-quality video from five to six minutes in length that resided in the cloud — something impossible to do over MMS, said Eric Hoffert, chief technology officer for the company.

So Thwapr created its own platform, which allows consumers and media brands to load content into its servers and distribute them to mobile phones using shortened URLs embedded in SMS messages. Those links open up in unique Web pages for each content clip, which then uses hybrid transcoding technology to stream the most high-quality video available to each device.

“We realize that not every phone can be the HTC Incredible, but we can give the best quality of experience available to each device,” Hoffert said. “Our philosophy is every phone should be a video phone.”

Thwapr has already launched several campaigns with media brands. The rock group Lordz of Brooklyn use Thwapr to distribute music videos and short documentaries to their fans. The Vans Warped Tour and Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Fest are using Thwapr to allow followers to subscribe to video updates through SMS short codes.

The consumer multimedia portal allows customers to upload their own video content, which they can then distribute via SMS, e-mail, Twitter feeds or by embedding it in other social networking sites like Facebook. The only element missing from a full MMS experience is mobile peer-to-peer. Currently a mobile user can forward Thwapr SMS links from the device or manually enter the shortened URLs into the SMS client. But the only means of sending video or photos shot on the device is a bit bulky. The customer attaches the file to an e-mail message sent to Thwapr’s servers, which then generates a landing page and new URL. The customer must then embed that URL into an SMS message or e-mail to send it out.

But Thwapr plans to rectify that issue soon — at least on smartphones. Later this year, Thwapr will release an iPhone app, which will act as a bridge between the content stored in the cloud, locally stored content and the device's SMS client. Customers will be able to send Thwapr video and picture missives from the iPhone client much as they would from the iPhone’s standard SMS-MMS app, but they’ll also be able to access whatever video and photo content they’ve stored in the Thwapr portal. Other smartphone clients will likely follow, Goldstein said, though Thwapr hasn’t decided which. 

If Thwapr’s service becomes popular and full MMS capabilities become available on devices, it has the potential to displace carrier-based MMS services. But Goldstein said operators likely won’t be too concerned. While they might lose out on MMS revenue, they stand to gain much more in mobile data subscription revenue. To access such a high-quality video, customers will need an unlimited or at least hefty mobile data plan, Goldstein said.