Microsoft Buying Facebook Not As Silly As You Think

Technology with content, the chicken and the egg. A potential perfect blending of scale with consumer access. Microsoft needs a win and needs a bigger footprint in social networking. Facebook could provide the perfect entry for Microsoft applications into everyday life. An interesting pairing!

Cable Ops To Form Wireless Broadband JV

Major cable companies Comcast, Time Warner, and Bright House may have ended one partnership with Sprint, but they are investing in another. In a deal valued at over $12 billion, cable is joining Sprint and Intel to invest in a new wireless venture designed to offer video, hi speed, and mobile.

SO the question to ask is does this make cable competitive with telco in the wireless spectrum - OR - does this create a monopolistic, national wireless pipeline that might require governmental oversight?

From the article, "“This [Clearwire] is going to be completely different,” the executive said, adding that each operator will determine on its own how the product will be priced, branded, and when and where each rollout will take place." Each cable entity will uniquely decide how to use this national highway in its pricing, packaging, positioning message to consumers. As a wireless venture, there are no physical boundaries; is this really possible, or is this rhetoric. Just wondering.

Digital Content Will Lead to the End of the Middleman: AP launches news service geared for iPhone

The information and entertainment business is changing rapidly as a result of digital distribution. The simplicity to transport content from creator to end user is leading to a wholesale change in the distribution chain. As evidence, watch as windows between dvd sales and VOD have been eliminated, TV shows are coming directly from NBC/Fox through their Hulu partnership to the viewer. Artists can talk directly to their consumer and provide a digital download. Yes today they still make a cd and sell through Amazon and Apple. But the path is leading to creating their own wholeowned distribution model and selling direct.

And AP, a longtime provider of news content to papers across the country, is offering content direct to consumer through the iPhone. Today, they are doing it in conjunction with their local newspaper partners, but in the future they may find that they can bypass this distribution channel and be a direct provider to the consumer, taking 100% of the profits. Yes, AP was created as a consortium of local papers, a not for profit entity to support its members; but the child is growing up and may one day have to leave the nest.

Barriers to entry have dropped significantly to allow old and new entrants a chance to speak directly to the consumer. Aggregators are still relevent to simplify the process of transport; but more companies may decide that they can be their own transport hub as they acquire brands across multiple platforms. Big fish will swallow little fish and will keep building and expanding their pipeline to speak directly to their consumer. Current distribution models are eroding and newer, more efficient models are adapting to this digital space.

Is 2008 the Year of VOD?

Will 2008 be the defining year for VOD. Certainly, VOD has been around for more than 5 years; has it really taken this long to find consumer acceptance? I first learned about VOD when I worked at Rainbow and had the opportunity to sell and launch their first free on demand service, Mag Rack. It was an amazing opportunity and allowed me to learn so much about the technical requirements to launch as well as the marketing priorities to build awareness and usage. As a free on demand service, we worked hard to demonstrate to the consumer that the videos were free to watch and easy to use. Back then, few understand that they had VOD access on their cable system.

As other channels expanded their free VOD offerings, they first used it as a dumping ground rather than an opportunity to showcase their best shows. Once they saw that their TV ratings were not negatively affected, quality improved and VOD usage and acceptance took off.

In my family, we use free VOD every day, and it has made us more comfortable when purchasing movies on demand. In fact, we recently made a conscious choice to not buy a dvd that would cost $20 and instead waited till we got home and rented the same movie for $5. While we don't get to own the movie in perpetuity, we did get to watch it and move in; no it wasn't worth buying it.

Is 2008 the year of VOD? I prefer to describe it as the year of digital download. With Apple's recent announcement with multiple studios to download films, along with studios bypassing the dvd windows to simultaneously offer movies for VOD and download at the same time with its dvd release, this does appear to be the year that VOD and digital viewership will have taken off. Viewing habits are shifting and dvd ownership is declining. I'm waiting to see what the next device looks like to store these video digital downloads.

Viacom Sees Q1 Earnings Jump Due to Rock Band

My 8 year old son wants Rock Band. He already has a Wii, PS2, and Nintendo DS. And believe it or not, we actually limit game time each day; otherwise, he would be working any one of these machines constantly. Will he get the whole band, or just guitar hero, I'm not sure yet; but at $190, its pretyy expensive for a young boy.

What is apparent is how important interactive gaming is to the future of entertainment. If he could play along to American Idol, it could be a rating boost. This next generation is limiting their TV time as they expand their enterertainment choices across new media. With so many hours in a day, something has to give and it isn't going to be his homework, so it is a reduction in TV viewing.

Thus it becomes clear that the best way to keep this audience engaged is to combine the best of both worlds. Watch Hannah Montana as you play with the microphone and dance moves; attack the Pokemon through the TV show. I expect more gaming tie-ins to programming; that's how we keep the younger audience further engaged to the TV programming and the brand.

ZeeVee’s Box Brings the PC to TeeVee

From New Tee Vee:
"Connecting your computer to your nice HD TV screen can get kludgy fast. A company called ZeeVee has an interesting solution that uses the existing cable wiring in your home to display what’s on your PC on an empty channel on your TV dial. Instead of requiring an additional receiver, it uses the HD tuner in your TV. No new-fangled wireless HD or old-fangled screen-scraping required."


Now if it can only be made idiot-proof.

iTunes to sell new films day-and-date

Throw out the old video distribution models. Technology has changed the time tables as media companies are throwing out distribution windows. Previously, a film would work its way throught different distribution windows allowing each new platform a chance to take some profit. But the rise of digital downloads and the slow death of dvds has finally eliminated the window between the dvd release of a movie and the VOD and digital download release. Customers seem to like the idea of rental vs purchase and want the immediacy of access. For that online customer, waiting 60 days for the dvd window to end before the film can be made available online, was not customer friendly. It also has led to more illegal means to access these films in digital format, and not paying for that download.

Those that prefer to buy or rent a dvd will continue to do so; those that want to immediately own it, will get it too. WIll there be cannibalization; some, but for the most part, that customer was already making the decision to pick one or the other format. To win back the dvd sales, film studios need to offer that customer that purchases the opportunity to both own the disc and make a downloadable copy for their pc. That would be the best of both worlds.

My Cable Company Wish List

When Viacom, Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM announced they were creating a new pay TV network, the big question pay television was asking became what draws customers to buy their service, original programming or movies. Obviously it is a percentage of each, but I would be hard pressed to to tell you which is more valuable to the purchase decision.

So I want to ask a bigger question, what type of service do you want from your cable company. As competition draws more intense and Verizon and AT&T enter more markets, what services draw the consumer to one service over another. Time Warner has invested in more advanced services, to improve the value of the cable box. Instead, I'd like to figure out a way to make the cable box invisible to the room. Hide the device behind the tv set and let it communicate wirelessly to a central server/converter box that can allow me to access my prerecorded shows to any tv set; that allows me to watch movies that I have downloaded on my pc to my set, that lets me customize my channel lineup so I can still search up and down my favorite channels; and works without latency or digital disruption. Make it work effortlessly. And make a remote control device as simple as the Apple ipod. And lastly, when a service problem occurs, to provide exceptional response, and not a 3 day delay to come out. That's what I want from my cable company.

Cable loses subscribers, satellite gains in Q1

While cable is attacking the phone's landline business, the telcos have been attacking cable's video and hi speed business. And while the telcos have lost phone revenues, it is not because of cable, but because of changing technological trends toward mobile communication. And with a recessionary economy, people need their cell phones, and can reduce their expenses by dropping the landline.

So does that make cable's strategy of going after the triple play business less successful? Cable has a real opportunity to take away a big portion of phone business in the home, but even more importantly, in the business sector. Providing phone and hi speed data services to businesses can become a lucrative opportunity for cable and should not be discounted when lookin at their revenue numbers.

Cable subscribers and cable revenue will decline; competition does that. But cable can still show huge revenue growth by entering into these other businesses that the phone company has had huge control over. Cable's business has an upside too.

On the consumer front, modem speed and fast connection are important marketing benefits to pursue; more homes have a hi speed line than a HD set. Consumers accept the modem because it hides behind the computer and does not interfere with the pc's ability to navigate. A cable box, on the other hand, takes controls away from the tv set. Most consumers prefer not to have a box; they are not comfortable with it and tend to limit the number of sets that they put a box on. The marketing benefit is to work closer with these manufacturers to improve their ergonomic value. Hey Apple mad an mp3 player a must have with the ipod. Until then, homes will do their best to work around the box or limit their numbers.