Steve Smith, writing about mobile video in general (registration required), makes a very informed point about the attempts to ‘crack’ the medium, with some historical anecdotes. Here’s his summary:

“Much of the technical and aesthetic experimentation in mobile entertainment may already have taken place in a Webisodic format that never took hold on the medium for which it was intended. To go back to history, a lot of time and money gets spent trying to squeeze the last medium’s successful formats into successes on the new medium. But it is just as likely that we should look to the failures of the previous medium when planning the next.”

What he’s talking about is this:

“Back in the day of TheDen, TheSpot, PseudoTV or even the early AtomFilms, for that matter, the fledgling Internet was all about birthing a new art form. “Webisodic” fiction, online reality shows and soap operas, the renaissance of the short subject, and the new venue for animators — all this and more were promised by the new Web.”