Random House and MoCo

Another item I was slow to pick up on. Last week, Random House announced it had bought a minority interest in a company called Vocel that offers educational content to subscribers to their cell phones. Richard Sarnoff from Random House had this to say: "Mobile phones have already integrated themselves into people's lives as an everyday appliance. You're also going to see them become an everyday information appliance. As the world's largest consumer publisher, we want to get out in front of this." Links here, and here and here

The kind of content that Vocel currently offers, and RH will offer, via cell phones is informational in nature (language guides, video game playing tips and test taking help) rather than recreational...fiction, eg.

Mobile content is not really a trend anymore...it's way too well established as a distribution channel now, especially outside the US. "Cell phone texts have already caught on in Germany, South Korea and Japan, where a cell-novel became so popular that it was turned into a feature film, 'Deep Love.'"