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Getting To Grips With Mobile Content Management
Dec 10 2008 // blog posts
With our partnership with MobileIQ fresh in our minds, we thought we’d offer a quick introduction into why we think the Fabric platform offers a unique approach to mobile content management, and of the pitfalls for anyone considering delivering to mobile.
The problem is relatively old – which means about 10 years in this industry – getting content to many devices over many operators. As the industry has matured, the added complexity of charging for content has also become a critical consideration.
It really comes down to this. You have one source of content, and lots of ways to deliver it, and lots of things to do in order to deliver it correctly. If mobile content delivery were an equation, it would read:
content x network x ( billing systems x ad network ) x device = choas
There were many systems that helped with parts of this problem, but none that really tackled it head on, until Fabric came along. There are two reasons other systems often fail.
Firstly, many systems are designed to solve one particular problem. For instance, delivering the right mark-up to the right device. But, to really work effectively there are other issues that must be addressed, and so you need to add other software that handles those things: asset management, billing system integration, video support, to name a few. So you end up with a kind of mobile content management soup, with bits of solutions mixed together to get what you need.
This is both painful and ugly to work with. There are numerous points of failure and as you enter into new markets, with new requirements, you’re back to the white-board – or even worse, new vendor selection.
The second reason things often fail is because very technical people, trying to solve a very technical problem, typically design these systems. The end-user – the person writing or uploading into the mobile content management system isn’t, doesn’t need to be and often doesn’t want to be an uber mobile specialist.
Fabric has solved this by brining the essential components together and taking the workflow that is typical in publishing (including the terminology), to make things more intuitive and simple to use. It’s all incorporated in the core of its design. The result is something that should be very familiar to anyone that has used a good CMS (Content Management System) or blogging engine previously.
So when we were looking to develop our new media marketing abilities into mobile content management, we were careful to select a company that we knew our customers could work with easily. We wanted a low barrier of entry solution – in terms of cost and usability – that we could be confident using.
If you are considering a mobile content platform, many of these requirements will also be at the forefront of your selection process. It’s a minefield out there filled with false promises and slide-ware. Our advice? Look for a system that can be trialed in days not weeks or months and with a customer base in your field that is willing to recommend.