Not engaged: Mobile music revenues fall

The hopes of the music industry that selling tunes to people with mobile phones might save their hides are starting to fade as the amount of cash raised from mobile sales starts to fall:

Sony BMG’s EMEA digital VP Ian Henderson was predictably pessimistic: ”If you look at the money we’re making from mobile music, it’s going down - mobile music was a lot bigger proportionally a year or two years ago. But, at the same time, we are really excited about what Nokia and SonyEricsson and Omnifone are doing. There’s a lot of hope but, right now, mobile music is in decline

Part of the trouble - and it's not just music companies who are making this mistake, it's prevalent in virtually any company that has a computer connected to a modem - is the mistaken belief that "mobile" is a platform in itself; as the iPhone and other smartphones have raised the game in displaying the full internet on a handheld device, talking about doing stuff for mobile is starting to look a little like talking about making programmes for car radios or creating shows for portable televisions. The market doesn't want to have a cut-down experience and doesn't thank you for spending time trying to create special stuff for a smaller screen; the sales come when you demonstrate how you can have the full experience on your pocket device.