Filed under: Feature, WIRELESS | Tags: Apple, iTunes, Mobile network operator, Mobile TV, Morpheus, MP3, Multimedia, Music and Audio, Music download, Napster, Television, VCast
FROM DIGITAL MUSIC TO MOBILE VIDEO?: LOST IN TRANSLATION
Guest Writer: Pascal Hillet
Do you remember what music downloading was like before iTunes?
Those were the heady days of Napster and Morpheus. There was a portable digital music device called the MPMan F10. I bought one but never could figure out how to make it work. I gave it away.
Then came Jobs. He and Apple figured out how to make a consumer-friendly music service and portable player. This was a Copernican revolution: Apple started from the premise of making as good a consumer experience as possible, then finding a way to deliver it, rather than the other way around. The rest is history.
Photo Credit: kprogram
Yet now I feel as if we’re back in a geocentric universe, only this time with mobile video. There are multiple mobile video and mobile TV services on this earth, and they all, well, suck. Not one of them is consumer-oriented.
For example, why put longish video on a linear service? Mobile viewing by definition isn’t appointment viewing. Who wants to miss both the start and the end of something, watch what’s in between and then try to figure out what it was all about?
Why ask us to pay $5 or $10 on top of the $50 or so we already pay for phone service so that we can watch ancient television episodes in low resolution on a tiny screen? Sorry, not a compelling proposition.
And that’s the point. The industry players (handset manufacturers, mobile operators, technology developers) are not thinking about the consumer first when they try to foist top-down-driven services upon us. Buying any of these is a dismal experience. We’re back to the MPMan.
Small wonder that none of these services have caught on.
Just as for music, we need a service that starts with the consumer in mind. Let us watch whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want. Give us an intuitive UI. Make it free, or include it in our phone subscription.
Last time I checked, Apple was doing pretty well selling iPods and iPhones on the back of the iTunes service. Whoever solves the mobile video puzzle will also prosper.
Go ahead. Make some history.
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Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE | Tags: Fox News Channel, Nashville, Showtime, Television, Toni Collette, Tony Robbins, United States of Tara, Viacom
President Obama’s first primetime press conference Monday night, airing live from 8p to 9p drew in nearly 49.5 million viewers over eight networks – ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Univision, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC. The hour also posted a combined 30.8 HH rating. (Cynopsis 2/11)
Details of the programming philosophy behind Epix — the premium cable channel formed by Viacom, Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate that will launch online in May 2010 and on TV that October — are beginning to take shape. According to this report, Epix this summer will begin shooting “Tough Trade,” an original scripted drama about the high and low notes of a family musical dynasty in Nashville, Tenn. The Hollywood Reporter (2/10)
Showtime gave a renewal nod to The United States of Tara for a second season. The drama starring Toni Collette as a woman with multiple personalities has averaged 2.1 million viewers per week, including repeat airings. (Cynopsis 2/11)
As this is my favorite show this season, I praise the TV gods over this announcement.
NBC approved a new series featuring peak performance strategist Tony Robbins. The series is described as life-changing as Robbins will mentor participants through personal challenges offering them a chance to refurbish their futures. Reveille will produce the series. (Cynopsis 2/11)
NBC selected two more comedy pilots: The first called Community is billed as similar to the movie Stripes set though in a community college and the second one is a cast-contingent pilot order for 100 Questions for Charlotte Payne. (Cynopsis 2/11)
MTV is giving rapper/record producer Snoop Dogg his own weekly variety show called Dogg After Dark. Premiering next Tuesday at 9p, the Los Angeles-based series will highlight interviews, sketch comedy and music performances. (Cynopsis 2/11)
Anne Heche will co-star in upcoming HBO comedy series Hung, playing the ex-wife to Ray (Thomas Jane) who is remarried. Production for the series begins mid-March with a premiere date expected in June. (Cynopsis 2/11)
The CW is moving the twelfth season premiere of America‘s Next Top Model to March 4 at 8p, a week later than planned. The opening episode also expands to two hours. (Cynopsis 2/11)
Shares of Time Warner shares dropped nearly 8% in New York trading Tuesday after Sanford Bernstein analyst Michael Nathanson downgraded the media giant to “market perform” from “outperform,” driven by declines at AOL and the Time Inc. magazine publishing unit. (Iwantmedia 2/11, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=auIz_yeGg_xw 2/10)
Up until very recently, the prevailing wisdom among media analysts was that “content is king.” Now, movies, television shows, magazines, radio programming and Internet content are being devalued. “No one knows to what extent content will be ‘re-valued’as the economy improves.” (Iwantmedia 2/11, http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1878711,00.html 2/11)
An increasing number of Americans are cutting their ties to cable companies and traditional DVD outlets in favor of the growing availability of free or low-cost video content that can be found online at places such as Hulu.com and Netflix.com, according to this story. Estimates suggest that cable subscriptions are down more than 1 million U.S. households and that DVD sales fell 8% last year. CNNMoney.com/Dow Jones Newswires (2/9)
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Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Gmail, Google, Google Book Search, Google Maps, Hulu, NBC Universal, Twitter, YouTube
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Coming off its first Super Bowl ad, Hulu.com, the joint online video venture between NBC Universal and News Corp. that went live about a year ago, is beginning to stake its claim against the giants in the field. The video portal’s primary age demo has become the 25-to-34 crowd, but in January of 2009, it outpaced YouTube, on a percentage basis, among Web viewers in the 25-to-44 demographic. The Wall Street Journal (2/10)
This article is pretty interesting in its description of the current showdown between Hulu and YouTube. Consider this, when I did a google search for “Hulu Superbowl ad,” the top link sent me to YouTube. Does anyone else see the humor in that?
Twitter no longer is just an easy-to-use messaging service. The 140-character limit has led to creative uses of the open application, including home automation. A programmer set his washing machine to send him a Twitter message when a load of laundry is finished, and a Duke University student rigged his lights to turn on and off with a Twitter message. Wired (2/10)
@baby: food water Twitter as the nanny…
Google appears to have a new obsession with knowing and broadcasting your current location. A week after announcing Latitude
, which shares your location with friends on Google Maps and threatens to render several startups irrelevant, an engineer has developed location-aware email signatures for Gmail. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/11/google-brings-location-awareness-to-email 2/11)
Not sure how comfortable I am with constant location updates. Sometimes, rarely albeit, I want to be anonymous.
Last October, Google signed a $125 million settlement with the Author’s Guild to pay authors for copyrighted works it has scanned and made available on the Web through its Google Book Search project. More than 7 million books have been scanned by Google so far, a large portion of them out of print. Today, the Google Book Settlement site went up, which allows authors and other copyright holders of out-of-print books the ability to submit claims to participate in the settlement. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/11/google-book-settlement-site-is-up-paying-authors-60-per-scanned-book 2/11)
Google is now making it easier for Websites to surface Friend Connect features with what it is calling the Social Bar. This is a toolbar that Websites can add to the top of their homepage or any other page they wish, and then they can add links for drop-down gadgets that lets site visitors do things such as sign in via Friend Connect, see who else has signed in recently, check out comments, or site members, all from Social Bar. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/11/google-friend-connect-introduces-the-social-bar 2/11)
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Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Apple, Microsoft, Mobile phone, Nokia, Palm OS, Steve Ballmer, Wi-Fi, Yahoo
Nokia is ready to drop its latest XpressMusic phone, the slim 5630, during the second quarter, according to Internet reports that say the midrange Symbian 60-powered handset will cost about $260 plus taxes. The device will feature a high-speed 7.2-Mbps HSDPA connection, a 3.2-megapixel camera and the N-Gage gaming platform — only the second non-Nseries handset to carry the high-end system. CNET (2/10) , Pocket-lint.co.uk (2/10)
Palm CEO Ed Colligan just pulled the plug on Palm OS, destroying the hopes and dreams of millions of Palm lovers around the world. Colligan also mentions that the Pre will have an app store and Palm will have no control over the content. The Pre will hit other carriers in 2010 and that they’re not too worried about Apple’s patents. (http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/11/palm-os-she-is-dead 2/11)
Sony Ericsson has debuted three devices: the C903 Cyber-shot camera phone, the AB900 Bluetooth car speakerphone and a Walkman music phone, the W395. The AB900 allows users to stream songs from their cell phones through their car stereo, while the 5-megapixel Cyber-shot rides the trend of companies’integrating their devices more tightly with such popular Internet services as YouTube, Flickr and Picasa. PCWorld/IDG News Service (2/10) , Pocket-lint.co.uk (2/10)
Southwest Airlines began testing free inflight Wi-Fi service yesterday powered by Westlake Village, CA-based Row 44. (Only a few planes will be wired for now, but look for a “Wi-Fi Hotspot” sticker when you board.) Yahoo has built the service’s homepage, which is focused on providing local destination information. (Cynopsis 2/11)
Microsoft plans to unveil its own app store next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, per Business Week, part of a complete overhaul of its mobile content strategy. CEO Steve Ballmer will also announce a new service dubbed My Phone that will allow users to sync photos, contacts, videos and other content from their handset then access it from any PC or web-connected device. (Cynopsis 2/11)
Video services will spark a huge rise in the use of data on mobile networks over the next five years, predicts Cisco Systems’latest Visual Networking Index, which expects a 66-fold explosion in data traffic by 2013 to reach 2 million terabytes — 2 exabytes — each month. In a separate study, ABI Research forecast that 500 million people would be watching TV on portable devices by 2013, but ABI said the medium would not take off until users were convinced about the service’s value. Unstrung (2/10) , GigaOm (2/10) , InformationWeek (2/10)
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Filed under: GAMING | Tags: Browser Based, Casual game, comScore, Games, iPhone, Online game, Personal computer, Video game
Lifetime Networks has signed a deal with game publisher Merscom to create four casual games based on Lifetime shows. The online games will include two hidden-object adventure games, a simulation game for personal computers and an iPhone game. TVWeek.com (2/10)
In a recession, free is always popular. Traffic to free ad-supported gaming sites increased dramatically last year, according to new research from ComScore Media Metrix. The category grew by 27% year-over-year to 86 million U.S. visitors. Total time spent playing online games also increased 42% from a year ago from 3.7% to 4.9% of all time spent online. And despite the challenging display market, the number of display ad views grew by 29% in the gaming category for the year, perhaps boosted by a 17% reduction in ads per page viewed, a measure of ad clutter. (Cynopsis 2/11)
Top Online Gaming Sites Dec. 2008 vs. Dec. 2007
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Dec-2007 Dec-2008 % Change
Total Internet : Total Audience 183,619 190,650 4
Online Gaming 67,457 85,977 27
Yahoo! Games 16,184 19,468 20
EA Online 12,673 15,369 21
Disney Games 11,933 13,458 13
WildTangent Network 7,650 13,306 74
Addictinggames.com 9,706 11,343 17
AOL Games 8,380 10,750 28
MSN Games 9,685 10,263 6
Miniclip.com 7,264 8,636 19
Nick.com Games 6,020 7,092 18
Spil Games 1,821 6,715 269
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Display Advertising Trends in Online Gaming Nov. 2008 vs. Nov. 2007
Online Gaming Nov-2007 Nov-2008 % Change
Total Display Ad Views (MM) 6,659 8,610 29
Advertising Exposed Unique Visitors (000) 52,066 67,834 30
Advertising Exposed Reach % 28.6 35.6 25
Display Ads per Page Viewed 1.00 0.83 -17
Average Frequency 127.9 126.9 -1
GRPs Total Population 2,271 2,913 28
Source: comScore Media Metrix
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Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Amazon Kindle, Aspire One, Best Buy, Consumer electronics, Microsoft Windows, Mobile phone, Wi-Fi, Windows XP
The Authors Guild, an advocacy organization for writers, objects to the new Amazon Kindle 2′s text-to-speech feature. “They don’t have the right to read a book out loud,” says executive director Paul Aitken. “That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.” (Iwantmedia 2/11, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10161104-93.html 2/10)
Video on demand box maker Vudu announced it is cutting the price of its HD box in half to $150, available at Best Buy, audio video retailers, and online. (Cynopsis 2/11)
Acer is introducing the U.S. market to its Aspire One AOD150, a netbook computer that retails for a penny less than $350. The portable PC comes with Wi-Fi, 1GB of RAM, 160GB of storage, Windows XP and a 10-inch monitor, which is about an inch bigger than the original Aspire One. Digital Trends (2/10)
Medis Technologies is marketing a fuel cell that can power small consumer-electronics devices such as cell phones in an emergency. The user squeezes the cylindrical cell to mix the chemicals inside, and the unit produces electricity for about 40 hours, or until the chemicals are used up. The New York Times (2/10)
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