Nokia experiments in content development

Nokia is adding a new kink to the concept of user-generated content for the mobile phone. It's added to its Mobility Share, or Mosh, service a function called Seek, which allows users to request specifically tailored content from Forum Nokia's sizable developer community instead of merely searching among the already available content.

Although the capability is by no means earth-shattering from a technical point of view, Nokia's inclusion of it shows the company is taking its grand content experiment in a new direction. The content and media industries have always taken a unidirectional approach to content, developing and publishing their wares, then distributing them to customers. Nokia is exploring a model in which customers tell developers what they want specifically and developers react, said George Linardos, vice president of business development and marketing for Forum Nokia and the man who oversees Mosh.

“For the first time, there's a real exchange going on,” Linardos said at the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment show, where Nokia announced the new Mosh features. “Developers are participating. They make it a point of pride to have the most downloads, the most activity on the site, so they're actively pursuing these requests for content.”

For instance, a Mosh user heading to Amsterdam for the weekend might put in a Seek request for a detailed map of the city, a travel guide detailing off-the-beaten-path sites or a video of a particular performance. Mosh developers already have created custom games based on individual Seek requests, and now that Nokia has publicized the capabilities, it expects those requests to grow, Linardos said.

It's unlikely that such a give-and-take model would ever ascend to the larger world of paid-for content, which depends on selling a single game or media file millions of times. But then again, Mosh isn't intended to work in that larger media publishing industry. It's an experiment in how users and those fledgling content developers interact.

The massive amounts of activity on the site show there is a demand for this kind transaction — Mosh has achieved 6 million downloads in a few short months — although its business model isn't entirely clear. And while Mosh has been hyped as a mobile version of Facebook or MySpace, those two giants are primarily social networking sites. Mosh has some limited profile and communication ability, but its primary focus is on user-generated content and applications, Linardos said.

“I find myself saying, we're not a social network,” he said. “We're a distribution network for user-generated content on the phone. People will say that's just Web talk, but it's an important distinction.