4G makes video mobile an instant gratification

The mobile video market is destined to surpass the traditional online video market on personal computers and is the breeding ground for the next big idea, experts agree.

The second-generation (2G) stage of mobile technology featured the transmission of text content.

In the 3G era, text was joined by images and audio.

But when it comes to 4G, video, which generally consumes huge amounts of data, will be the star, according to telecom industry expert Wang Guanxiong.

"The speedy network allows people to make and share short video clips much more easily and conveniently. It will trigger a convergence between multimedia and social networking," Wang said.

Chinese Internet giants Tencent Holdings Ltd and Sina Corp already have entered the field by launching mobile video applications.

Tencent invited various celebrities to open accounts on Weishi, its short video-sharing platform, in hopes of attracting their fans to use the application.

"Compared with texts or pictures, video contains the most information, thus video is the best channel to deliver your personality," said Luo Zhengyu, a Beijing-based media practitioner.

Movie stars such as Fan Bingbing and Xu Jinglei recently uploaded short video clips on Tencent's Weishi that showcase their daily life.

Xiao Xiao, a Shanghai office worker, said she never had expected to get a peek at those actresses' personal lives, but the video application really drew them closer.

Lei Jun, chief executive officer of smartphone company Xiaomi Corp, said people previously downloaded videos to mobile phones through WiFi networks, but if the mobile broadband is fast enough, nobody will choose the original way. "In the future, people can watch videos anywhere, anytime," Lei said.

That should be a very good news for video content producers.