REVIEW: Melodeo’s Mobilcast worth tuning in to

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Yay or Nay, a feature for RCR Wireless News’ weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. Every week we’ll review a new wireless application or service from the user’s point of view, with the goal of highlighting what works and what doesn’t in the mobile content industry. If you wish to submit your application or service for review, please contact us at rcrwebhelp@crain.com.
Application: Melodeo’s Mobilcast
Running on: Moto Razr from Sprint Nextel
Yay: The simple user interface, and a seemingly vast array of content, makes this application sing.
Nay: The audio quality could be better, and the service chows through our thin Razr battery pretty quickly.
We say: Melodeo’s Mobilcast does a slick job of bringing a wide array of podcasts directly to our mobile phone. In fact, this application alone is almost worth the $15 per month cost of unlimited data access.
Review: There are a lot of mobile applications out there, both free and for a fee, that do not provide much in the way of utility or entertainment. Melodeo’s Mobilcast service does not fall into this category.
Instead, Mobilcast gives users immediate access to a wide range of interesting, entertaining and informative content. The service is relatively easy to use, and the audio quality is good enough to get us through our morning bike ride to work.
We were able to download Mobilcast through Melodeo’s Mobilcast Web site at www.mobilcast.com. The Java application arrived through a short-code trigger, and we installed it without hassle. It seems Mobilcast is available for a fee through some carriers, but we did not need to pay for our download through our Sprint Nextel phone.
The Mobilcast application, introduced in 2005, mirrors the service available on the Mobilcast Web site: Users are able to browse for podcasts across a wide variety of genres, such as entertainment, music and news, as well as through keyword searches. Users can add podcast feeds to their list of favorites, and every time a new podcast is created by the source, the favorites list is updated.
We enjoyed listening to the BBC Radio NewsPod as well as a range of offerings from NPR. The weekly Slate Magazine podcast was also worth checking out, as well as some of the stand-up comedy routines that are available through Mobilcast.
The Mobilcast Java application on our phone provided serviceable audio quality for talk shows, but was not really suited for music. The podcasts’ audio is streamed over the cellular network, and suffers from the same coverage problems as voice calls. Despite such issues, there was plenty of talk-show content to choose from and coverage to support it.
Melodeo has also managed to link its Mobilcast application to the Web site, allowing us to search for content from the comfort of our desktop computer, add it to our list of favorites, and then listen to it on our phone. Slick.
If we were to list one major gripe with the service, it would be support for streaming music. Melodeo would do well to improve the audio quality of its service, and then add some genre-based radio stations.
Another seeming glitch is the application’s “save to phone” feature, which downloads podcasts into our phone’s ringtone section. This feature would be a nice way to listen to podcasts outside of our carrier’s coverage, but placing the files in the ringtone section (a problem that might be due to our phone) makes them difficult to access.
Nonetheless, Melodeo’s Mobilcast application is worth a listen.