An interesting article about the NFL and their anticipated growth of mobile/wireless features, with potential profits in a few years projected at $30M. Of course the NFL has a pile of dynamic content to distribute to millions of rabid fans -- the NFL Network is a great example. The rinky-dink combination of current mobile offerings (WML -- which is not updated quickly enough or accurately enough, Palm apps, ringtones, voting for Pro Bowl players or MVP, etc.) seem to be hard-pressed to total the kind of revenue hinted at in this article, but the ever-expected onslaught of 3G speeds may provide highlights or live video coverage to phones.

More likely revenue generators? In the near term the "Gamecenter" would make a perfect and easy port to a Midlet, and up-to-the-minute Fantasy Tools would also generate significant revenue -- who could've anticipated that having control over active/inactive lists at 1PM would be worth so much money?

The NFL's cellphone ventures are growing so rapidly that by the 2006 or 2007 season, some league officials think, wireless could generate as much profit as conventional services delivered through league Web pages and the associated advertising.

...

Pro football's ventures into wireless are "in many ways just the beginning," said Chris Russo, the NFL's senior vice president for new media. "We expect continued growth over the next two or three years, and wireless has the potential to equal or exceed what we're doing on the Internet."

Russo declined to offer specifics, but people familiar with the NFL's online operations estimate they currently gross about $140 million, yielding annual profits of $35 million to $40 million.

The full article is here.

And, hey, if we're talking about what fans would pay money for -- how about selling the coaches film footage? Maybe not each week -- even if just the last season. It's nice having that funky floating Madden-esque camera behind the LOS, but I'd love to see the secondary through the whole play.

The W3C is considering a W3C Mobile Web Initiative that will seek to ease Web access from mobile devices. Computer World has an little bit about it, with a link to numerous "position papers" from notable vendors, large and small, about infrastructure, best practices, considerations, etc.

As a guy who doesn't read the paper any more, but instead relies solely on a rather arduous morning ritual of wading through pages of worthless navigation content to get at the guts of stories from non-local favorites (such as the WaPo or ProJo), it's interesting to see what different companies see as the issues and the hurdles to moving forward. In the case of the Blackberry, the RIM power point PDF on the site, focuses solely on what they currently have, and the alphabet soup of protocols and languages they support -- seemingly suggesting that the status quo, of accessing exisiting web content from the device is sufficient -- hint, hint -- it's not. But there is also a very nice piece by the bright guys at Opera, including:

Use cases for the mobile Web

There is no separate mobile Web, any more than there is an office Web, a home Web, a leisure Web, or an airport Web. The ways in which the the Web is accessed, depend on cost, technology, usability, and situation. Initially the cost and technology constrained Web use to data look-up or download and as infotainment while travelling or in similar situations. As phone browsing becomes more fun, the Web use becomes more diverse.

How the mobile user experience differs from the fixed user experience

The differences can be summed up as adding constraints and freedom. With a phone you need to do more with less, and the constraints are most obvious to the user. It is slower, has smaller displays, is more expensive, and has lower usability. In many ways the mobile user experience is burdened with the same accessibility issues as people with disabilities. It also offers freedom. With the mobile Web you bring your computer with you. This gives the mobile Web an immediacy the desktop Web experience does not have; it is more social, and it can adapt to where you are.

Brilliant! Timo Bruns and Ove Ranheim, kudos to you. There is a successful Symbian Opera browser -- I wonder if there's any hope for a Java one as well? Hopefully I can take the time to read more of the documents. But, damn it, I'm gonna read it from my mobile. So much for your powerpoint PDF, RIM.

Somedays, in my most self-pitying mood, I wonder why the world hasn't moved faster to embracing mobile technology, and GPS cellphones and the like. Surely I understand the Big Brother fears, surely I see the reticence from carriers from moving too quickly into uncharted territory.

And then, the worst fears realized, as Mark Frauenfelder and the RFID in Japan blog discovered the news -- a girl abducted and killed in Japan, while her family received tormenting messages from the captors via her tracking GPS cellphone.

While the GPS system didn't necessarily contribute to the crime -- she was seemingly stalked and abducted without benefits of GPS tracking (unlike this case a few months ago) -- the technology, in the end, couldn't save her either. As Mark makes the case in his links, tracking is not a substitute for good parenting and trust. At the end of the day, as so much new technology is embraced first for evil (or illegal) instead of good (witness the "pager = drug dealer" sentiment of the 80s), it certainly gives me pause to think of any innovations I can create, and potential misuse.