As Michael Fedor's recent post suggested, the technical reach of what's possible with the latest generation of mobile devices seriously exceeds the usability grasp of the folks orchestrating the customer experience on them.
In today's "Personal Technology" column in the Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg describes ESPN's new mobile video service. Taking a page from Apple's playbook, ESPN has boldly bundled content, network (acting as an MVNO by licensing Sprint's EVDO network) and device (tailoring the service for consumption on a specific Sanyo model it co-brands with its own name).
At the same time, ESPN has restricted the sites you can reach from the phone's browser -- like si.com -- apparently claiming that it's doing so to protect the user from incompatible downloads. Here, ESPN seems to have skipped Apple's iPod page in which it says that you can download mp3's, as well as songs in its proprietary format.
ESPN's overall effort seems like a good move given how poorly integrated virtually all high-end mobile devices are, but the restrictions suggest an internal struggle that clouds the power of its vision and compromises Apple-like usability. Walt's review was ultimately negative. Maybe I'm missing something?
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