You Down With OTT? Yeah, You Know go90

Sorry. Couldn’t resist the Naughty By Nature joke – though, hopefully, most of the millennials that Verizon is targeting with their go90 service will get the reference, even if they’re not sure what an OTT is. (If you’re not, it’s short for ‘over the top’ – an app that delivers content, whether it be audio, video, messaging, what-have-you – to a device, like your mobile phone or iPad.)

Mobile carriers are starting to realize that instead of considering this a disruptive threat, they can play this game as well. Verizon acquired a Silicon Valley startup called OnCue in 2013 for what seems like a pittance in today’s unicorn terms – less than $200 million – and has repackaged elements of that service into a platform called go90, to deliver content from about half of the major cable networks, some NFL games and other millennial-friendly programming. (The kids are all cutting the traditional cable cord these days, as you know.)

The offering is free, but should create revenue for Verizon in two ways – use of customer data plans, plus any advertising revenue generated. The latter, of course, is the major advantage when a customer chooses go90 over a third party app. We expect to see more of these kinds of applications from carriers in the future.

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More @ WSJ.