Color's Plan C (Or Is It B.5?): Becoming Verizon's Live Mobile Video Partner
Color, the famously overfunded social app shop, is still looking for its first big hit. But the company has found a way to get some help, with a deal with Verizon Wireless to pre-install Color on some of its Android smartphones.
Context & Ripple Effects
Verizon had already been building a content and discovery role around its handset base, from its mobile-video pitch in March to its 2011 partnership with app-discovery engine Chomp. The Color agreement puts a live-video app into that carrier-led distribution strategy.
For Color, pre-installation on selected Verizon Android phones supplies a route to users that its standalone social-app launch had not established. For Verizon, the deal adds a named live-video partner alongside its broader effort to make its mobile service a destination for content.
First-order effects
- Color gains pre-install distribution on selected Verizon Android smartphones, tying its user acquisition directly to Verizon's handset sales channel.
- Verizon can present live mobile video as part of its Android experience rather than leaving discovery of the service solely to Android's app marketplace.
Second-order effects
- App developers seeking scale have a clearer incentive to pursue Verizon partnerships, following the carrier's earlier use of Chomp for app discovery and Color for live video.
- Verizon's video positioning puts greater value on partners that can differentiate its handset offering, rather than simply adding another downloadable app.
Third-order effects
- If Verizon continues to combine handset placement, app discovery, and media partnerships, carrier control over mobile-service distribution could become a meaningful alternative to app-store discovery.
- The arrangement points toward mobile video competition being shaped not only by applications but by which carriers package and promote them on devices.
The trend: U.S. carriers are expanding from connectivity providers into curated mobile-content distributors, using handset partnerships to influence app discovery and video adoption.