Book Review: The mobile media boom

IN Digital Media | 24/02/2005

Asia Unplugged: The Wireless and Mobile Media Boom in the Asia Pacific

Madanmohan Rao and Lunita Mendoza (Editors)

Response Books, Sage

Pp 464

Rs 850

TCA Srinivasa Raghavan

This book is the sixth in a series on what is happening in Asia, starting from India in the West and up to Japan in the East, in the business of mobile communication. However, although the title suggests that it is about the implications of this for the media, there really isn’t all that much in the book about that aspect.

In the preface, Rao asks, "how can the news media and entertainment industry harness mobile devices and technologies…while protecting their brands and encouraging innovation?" This is not a very meaningful question and doesn’t have an answer - which is perhaps why Rao does not provide one.

The real question that needs answering is: at what non-zero and non-negative price to the consumer can demand and supply (both of which exist, as the book amply demonstrates) be matched? The book does not even attempt to do so, which is a pity because that is the central problem that both firms and regulators are wrestling with.

Some countries are closer to a resolution than others. A cross-country comparison would have enriched the book.

Instead, much of the book is a description of the speed with which the market for mobiles is expanding in different countries. But when you think about it, that very speed is an enemy of books like this: if everything is changing as rapidly as the book says, what is the value of a book that will be outdated before you can say Nokia?

Nor is it tenable any longer to claim that the issues change more slowly and the book focuses on those issues. Even that is not very accurate. Not only have the issues been changing very rapidly, even the response of the regulators has been quick.

Thus, what was hot in the first half of 2004 had become passé by the end of the year. It seems certain that the same will be true of 2005 as well. Also, the mass media covers the business extensively in depth, which makes a book on the subject not as useful as it would have been in the past. 

So where does the value of this book lie? Mainly in serving the purpose of a reference volume for those who might want some quick information on what is happening outside their own countries. Thus, by bringing together as many as 21 experts from the Asia-Pacific region, the editors have performed a useful task.

However, all of them say pretty much the same thing: that mobile telephony, Internet, e-commerce and such like have taken off in Asia like a Saturn rocket: almost vertically. The data that they provide will be very useful for making comparisons.