We’ve known for a long time that Nokia wants to be seen as much as a services company as a handset maker, so it shouldn’t be all that surprising to learn that the company is exploring different ways to deliver online video to mobile phones.
According to a report in New Media Age, Nokia is particularly interested in “kick-starting” the consumption of long-form content on mobiles by utilizing a podcast style delivery method whereby users subscribe to various video feeds, presumably enabling content to be downloaded to the device “over-the-air” rather than being “side-loaded”.
While the service is said to be in trial mode only with about 600 users, 100 of which are Nokia employees, content partners already reportedly include BBC Worldwide, ITV, Sky and Paramount.
I'm sorry, but I don't want my cell phone company anywhere near my content. Too many opportunities for them to put their sticky fingers into my wallet. Instead of forcing people to “subscribe” to content they pre-approve why not support digital video standards like DivX instead? It may not earn them much in incremental revenue, but it will allow them to serve customers like myself who value openness over proprietary closed systems.