MIDEM 2009: Mobile Comes to music.

With a growing number of high-end music-enabled devices hitting the market alongside all-you-can-eat content offerings, 2009 could well be the year mobile music goes mass market

Mobile

By Adam Woods

As recently as five years ago, the MidemNet mobile telephony session was deflated by the revelation that a mobile would never accommodate a Pentium III chip, because it would burn a hole in your pocket.

But looking on the bright side, wrote French consulting firm Idate - which was on the spot and taking notes - the positive news from the 2004 seminar was that, "the telephone can be carried around at all times and allows for easy payment [for music downloads]."

It seems like a long time since people worried about the ability of mobile phones to store music, and it certainly seems a while since anyone needed to point out just how "mobile" a mobile really is. Which goes to show that, while the mobile music market might seem to be taking a long time to come to a head, the music industry's insight into the sector, not to mention the technology available, has come a very long way in half a decade.

This year at MidemNet, the increasing maturity of mobile is reflected in the fact that the subject is woven right through the schedule, rather than discussed hypothetically in a corner. According to the programme, mobile is likely to form a key part of discussions about social networking, communicating with fanbases and the potential of the Far Eastern market.