Content is King: Malaysian Industry Experts’ Point of View on Local Content for Mobile Phones

Abstract

Content is the most prominent aspect of the medium for communication. The trends of the content nowadays, especially in Malaysia, have shown the lack of local content in, for example, television, radio, films, the Internet and, in more recent years, mobile phones. In order to understand the situation in Malaysia with regards to local content for mobile phones, meetings were carried out with Malaysian mobile technology specialists. Given their extensive experience in this industry, they are knowledgeable regarding mobile users’ needs. The findings show that there is limited local content. On the other hand, the Malaysian government has adopted a pro-active attitude to launch activities to motivate students in the universities to produce more local mobile content. Problems that need to be addressed include: low numbers of mobile content developers; lack of standardization of mobile phones; a limited business for Malaysian mobile content and limitation of bandwidth coverage in rural areas. The content on the mobile phone is also crucially important for the positioning of Malaysian local culture on the world map. One of the areas identified of importance for understanding use of mobile content is at the local institutions of higher learning. Thus, it is suggested to investigate mobile content for students and educators further on how it could benefit those participants.