In a recent GIPS blog post, John Hermansen correctly pointed out that we should be skeptical of the current crop of market predictions of the latest “hot new consumer device”, the media phone. 

One thing is certain though, the release of new media phone contenders, and the inexorable movement of video to all kinds of consumer electronic devices continues. Internet video is going to be enabled on lots of stuff, including the next generation multimedia-rich mobile phones, mobile computing devices, set-top boxes, Internet-connected TVs, and media phones. 

As evidence of this, consider the following two news releases on June 2^nd: 

1) Sorensen Media announced “a significant expansion of its Spark licensing program as a result of accelerating market demand and proliferation of Internet video.” The announcement goes on to say that “Spark is the Internet’s most widely deployed video codec, powering hundreds of millions of Internet videos, including those on YouTube, the volume leader in online video streaming.”

2) Also on June 2^nd, ARC announced “its latest Sound-to-Silicon solution aimed at the new category of broadband-based multimedia device, the Media Phone”. The ARC solution is designed to provide partners and OEMs with a  reference platform for “quickly entering and gaining share of the fast-growing Media Phone market.”

There are going to be a lot of new Internet video enabled consumer electronics devices in our future. I hope some of them will actually be useful to consumers, and by extension, successful in the market place. Stay tuned.