Mobile Media Consumption Defies the Lousy Economy

(MoneyWatch)  Cash-strapped media companies, I know you don't want to hear this: but mobile media consumption data shows it's time to jump-start your mobile strategy. Everywhere I look lately, consumer usage of mobile phones as media devices rising, almost in defiance of the lousy economy. Importantly, most of the figures show mobile media consumption increasing even in the dark days since the true economic meltdown began in September. In other words, this looks like a phenomenon that will transcend the economic downturn. A few news items, just from the last few weeks:

• According to comScore, game downloads to mobile phones increased by 17 percent between November 2007 and November 2008; game downloads to smartphones (the iPhone and its ilk), increased by 34 percent during the same period.
• Nielsen Mobile data shows that people are more interested in watching long-form video on their mobile phones (think NBC's "Heroes"), as opposed to the short-form vids that many thought would be more popular on mobile.
• Users of the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch have downloaded 500 million apps from Apple's App Store, most of them in gaming and entertainment, in the last six months. That number stood at 300 million in early December, roughly six weeks before it reached the 500 million download mark.

This is causing a gold rush among developers and some media companies to come up with apps that tap into this phenomenon. (Somehow the word "trend" doesn't do it justice.) The number of apps developed and available at the Apple app store has increased by 50 percent in a month. Meanwhile, media properties as diverse as Conde Nast's Lucky Magazine and Fox's "American Idol", are developing content specifically for mobile devices.

But it's the number of people upping their mobile media consumption that really matters. All media companies know that they have to be where the eyeballs are, and it looks increasingly, like our eyeballs are becoming glued to our mobile phones.