Om Malik reports that Mercora, which lets users play DJ and set up their own streaming channels, is now offering a mobile application that lets Windows Mobile users listen to channels on their devices.
Services like Mercora illustrate the massive shift underway to personal mobile media — a movement that’s rendering time or location irrelevant to personal media consumption. Om brings up something we’ve touched on before, the resistance of carriers to let anybody cut them out of the revenue stream. While there’s always the possibility that carriers can come up with technical blocks for providers like Mercora, economics dictate that things will be difficult for the company, because mobile data is still way too expensive, except on the handful of carriers that offer flat-rate plans — not to mention plenty of carriers still run walled gardens. It’s hard to see these types of services succeeding without partnering up with operators.
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