Yet another route by which newspapers can sell their content online over the mobile network!

News on the Move
While The Wall Street Journal & International Herald Tribune were early implementors of WAP portals, more & more newspapers are catching up by setting up their WAP portals. These portals permit cellphone users access to newspapers' online content via cellphone browsers & mark-up languages like WML.

Apart from this, there are newspapers who send their daily newspaper via MMS rich text with images (& some with the lesser SMS text). Along with periodic alerts.

In fact, mobile news susbcribers can access the latest news on their cell-phones - news which may be published as late as in the next day's edition of the newspaper! In addition, readers can interact instantly with editorial staff by messaging comments.

So your mobile newspaper could be a sophisticated, browser based version of your online newspaper. Or it could be an MMS received every morning from your newspaper - with links to pictures, images, etc. And at the very least it would be a regular set of text alerts via SMS.

More Than Just News
Content will of course, include weather forecasts & up-to-the-minute city traffic updates. Job vacancies & shopping discount offers will naturally follow. As will sales of ring tones, music & video online. And finally, online opinion polls, voting & even bidding on the cellphone. Leading surely, to full-fledged mobile content stores!

Today, there is no dearth of mobile news services launched by newspapers. Some have started as text news alerts. Others send rich text MMS alerts. And many have directly set up WAP portals, permitting online access via cellphones. Most are launched as free services with plans to (soon) charge subscription fees.

In truth, the mobile newspaper is just another milestone of the digital media revolution.

Another Sign of Digital Media Revolution
In truth, the mobile newspaper is just another milestone of the digital media revolution.

To track developments in mobile newspapers, let's focus on China, where a number of mobile newspapers launched in the past year (2005-2006). China's 1st mobile newspaper was launched by Guangdong-based leading "Nanfang Daily"in July 2005, in partnership with China's largest mobile phone operator China Mobile.

July 2005 saw a new mobile newspaper from China Women Daily for cellular phone users. Content published in the China Women Daily is simultaneously available to subscribers via mobile phones - for a subscription fee of $2.5 per month.

In January 2006, South China based Shenzhen Press Group launched their mobile phone version newspaper in partnership with mobile phone operator China Mobile. This mobile newspaper is sent by MMS to subscribers every morning. Initially free, its news, business, entertainment & sports content targets a few million paid subscribers within the next couple of years. (Shenzhen itself has over 10 million mobile users with 8 million MMS users.) China Mobile plans to charge $ 1 per month as subscription fee.

Chinese daily Beijing Technology Newspaper is the latest to launch a mobile newspaper in partnership with mobile search service provider Cgogo. "The Mobile Beijing Technology Newspaper" is probably one of the first Chinese papers with its own domain name on a WAP network. As mobile users read the contents of Mobile Beijing Technology Newspaper, they will be able to leave messages. And - soon - access archived contents.

Advantage Mobile
The real advantage of mobile content stores over online stores are many fold:
* The population of mobile phones exceeds PCs.
* Unlike PCs, mobile phones travel with the owner.
* Billing is a cake-walk : because of the sturdy & sophisticated billing systems already
   available with mobile phone service providers
* Unlike online services, the cellphone subscriber is used to paying directly to his
   mobile operator for services enjoyed!

So it should come as no surprise that News Corp has launched Mobizzo, a mobile content store. Offerings swing from the mundane / expected to the positvely eclectic. Including text alerts from tabloid gossip columns to movie posters, music & video clips from the Star media group (the last when cellphone users are video-ready). Extending to the bizarre - like tattoo designers, street art & underground writers!

Transformational Powers of Broadband
On a more serious note, mobile newspapers are also a proof of the transformational powers of high-speed broadband Internet access. Increasing Internet bandwidths is revolutionalizing mass communications. In the broadband era, it is the participants rather than the media industry who control communication, with audiences which are more often small rather than "mass" based.

Will this give small media owners, firms & individuals a chance to compete successfully with the large, media giants?