Original title: [Nokia Productions] Mobile-generated content
Published June 14, 2008
Present-day note (2025):
This post was originally written in 2008 and is preserved largely as-is, as a snapshot of how I was thinking at the time. Some details are dated; others still feel relevant. If I were writing it today, I’d frame parts of it differently, but I’m leaving the original voice intact.
Ten years ago, the idea of creating high-quality content generated from your mobile device might have seemed completely unfeasible. Current advances in technology, and the many different ways we are now able to produce content on the fly, have made this idea very feasible.
We all live in a continuously evolving, technologically advanced society that is becoming increasingly connected to the world and to each other. People now have the ability to create vast amounts of mobile-generated content and instantly share it with almost anyone, from almost anywhere.
Photos, videos, music, and text—these are just some of the things people can store, share, or create using their mobile phones. Of course, some phones are better at this than others, but with the right techniques, almost anything is possible. Quality content is not always limited by a phone’s abilities—it is limited by the user’s imagination.
Travel anywhere, and it is not hard to spot a mobile phone with a built-in camera. Every day, thousands upon thousands of people photograph the world using their phones. As an administrator for the popular Flickr group “Photos taken with an Apple iPhone”, I have experienced firsthand what camera phones and their users are capable of. Some of the photos I have seen still amaze me.
Some people use their camera phones to capture special moments that would have otherwise been lost, while others use them to record everyday or random things. Mobile phones have enabled people to document nearly everything. At one time, the only camera a person might have had with them was a traditional camera—and not all the time.
I believe mobile devices will continue to advance in their ability to provide consumers with a viable alternative to carrying many of the things we often travel with—everything from cameras, to computers, and even keys. In many ways, the mobile phone has become all of these things. These devices also unify how we interact with and produce content while on the go.
Although mobile devices are not designed to replace regular computers or cameras, they do provide an easily transportable alternative and can almost be thought of as an accessory to your personal life.
In short, no matter what kind of mobile device you own, creating quality content with it is entirely possible. All it really takes is some imagination. Trust yourself—anything is possible.
This is a cross-post of “Mobile-generated content” from the Nokia Productions blog.