Recently, Verizon sold off most of the stake in their media businesses, including AOL and Yahoo!, for $5 billion indicating their desire to focus on their core strengths - their wireless network and internet service provider business. While on its face this announcement may look like they are leaving the media world behind, the desire to focus on those strengths reveals a path to a big media opportunity.
What their core strengths ultimately lead to is the device (or smartphone) that is in the hands of each and every one of their subscribers. And nowhere are users spending more time consuming media than on their smartphones, which Verizon, and other carriers, have a lot of control over through the software that helps people discover the type of experiences they enjoy.
The truth is that simply owning media properties in today’s landscape isn’t enough. What really has driven media success is the advent of discovery, or making it easy for the consumer to find something they like.
Discovery builds behemoths
Ever since the app economy was built, discovery to aid media consumption has created massive winners. While the carrier focused on building networks and offering affordable data plans, established companies, like the New York Times and ESPN, as well as emerging upstarts like Facebook and Pandora made media into fun, compact experiences that people could easily discover on their smartphones.
But discovery didn’t end with the app. Many of the biggest innovators of the 21st century continued to make things easier for people to discover - even as they evolved. Consider:
1. Apple
Apple’s theme of being “simple and smart” has stuck with them. Their first computers eschewed nerdy command lines and went with an easy to use graphical interface instead. Understanding that easier to use also means easier for the user to discover things, they stuck with that formula when they started making iPhones and iPads. And they haven’t stopped there. Now Apple Watches give information to the user with the turn of their wrist. And their media app, Apple News, has many features that slickly integrate with phones to make it easy for the user to discover the news they want on that app - simply swipe right or ask Siri!
2. Facebook
Facebook wasn’t the first social site, but it was the first to create a social network. While MySpace relied on the user visiting their friend’s pages to see what’s up, Facebook created a feed scroll so that people could easily see what was going on with everyone in their network. And now on Facebook, they have what amounts to a never ending feed of content enabling constand discovery for their users. This focus on aiding discovery has held up through the years even as they have expanded to include other apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
3. Netflix
Remember when Netflix would mail you DVDs? They’ve obviously come quite a way. But it still started with making it easy for the consumer - no more visits to the Blockbuster, queue lists that could grow to infinity. This theme of easy has held through the years even as they have become a goliath of a streaming service. In fact, nowhere is their focus on discovery more apparent than what you see when you first log on to your Netflix account - a whole menu of personalized and recommended options that you can watch at the touch of a button.
The biggest discovery opportunity is the phone itself
Discovery on the phone has been a growing trend even prior to the pandemic. Phoenix Marketing revealed a trend showing people were increasingly opening their phones without a specific app in mind (and coined it “App”-nostic behavior). With the percent on unlocks steadily increasing (and exploding since the pandemic), people are not only spending more time on their phone, but are doing it without knowing exactly what they want.
With this “App”-nostic behavior, another smartphone trend has also evolved. While we still spend a large portion of time in apps, we spend an increasing amount of time outside of our apps looking for things to do. Whether it’s organizing, searching, or scrolling, the phone experience doesn’t exist exclusively within apps.
These trends have provided an opportunity for carriers, advertisers, and app developers to find ways to recommend content and apps that users might like through intelligent discovery solutions. Swipe to one side on the home screen of many mobile phones and you might see a portal of news, weather, screen use, and more for the user to explore. Swipe the other way and perhaps you’ll see an organized library of your apps that you can search or other apps that you might like.
This is why we shouldn’t look at Verizon’s sell-off as a white flag. Their opportunity in the market still exists as long as they have influence over how people are using their device. Back before the app economy, carriers created additional revenue streams by allowing users the ability to find ringtones and screensavers to improve their smartphone experience. Now that people are using their phones differently - for consuming media - their focus can evolve much like the other behemoths of this century.
By creating device-centric discovery experiences like these that help and engage the user, carriers like Verizon can stick to what they're good at - helping users discover things they need and want on their device. And advertisers will get in line to be part of those experiences to bring their apps, products, and services to the forefront of where people are most likely to see it - right on the device they use for hours every single day.
