Nook Arriving; iTab Says So What

With Valentine's Day in a week (wait you mean Christmas is over) Barnes & Noble has announced that their e-book reader will finally be available at their stores. "Barnes & Nobles, based in New York, said it was shipping Nook e-readers to the majority of its stores beginning this week, with devices on sale in stores as of February 10." Great, but so what. Apple has just announced it's tablet, the iPad, and the Nook and others pale by comparison. Is the Nook's thunder lost? Will consumers buy or wait and see what is the ideal choice. Or wait even more for the next generation to fix the bugs and come out cheaper anyway.

With newspaper and magazine subscriptions dropping, is anyone thinking about packaging them in with purchase. The Nook should create a deal, with every purchase get a free one year subscription to 1 newspaper and 2 magazines. Price it into the purchase price and sell the low package cost. Help out an industry and perhaps in return get extra advertising and PR back.

I look forward to the future of e-book readers when they are made of flexible materials that can be rolled up and stuffed into a pocket. Size, portability, mobility, and convenience.

The End of The Jay Leno Show

Tonight, the 10 PM experiment known as The Jay Leno Show officially ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Unlike Conan, no intrigue, no build up, no increase in audience. So why risk anything. "Jay Leno is expected to take a low-key approach to tonight’s finale of “The Jay Leno Show,” which is ending after five disastrous months on the air." Why bother.

Let's hope that the Tonight Show will find its audience again. The brilliant commercial with Jay, Oprah, and David Letterman, makes one wonder why give credibility back to Jay. Perhaps Dave likes a good fight, or he is simply above it all to worry. At the same time, could it have been funnier with Conan?

Get Ready For More Commercials On Web Videos

You can run but you cannot hide. That is the fate that advertising has on the consumer. We ran from broadcast TV to cable with the hope of less commercial interruptions. HBO and Showtime forced us to pay but at least the movies were uninterrupted. We ran from linear to DVR so we could fast forward through commercials. And we ran from TV to computer to watch our shows online, when we want to watch them, and with fewer commercials to put up with. But that is changing, too. "Indeed, viewing programs on Hulu, the online video site owned by NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney, means encountering significantly fewer ads than one would see watching TV. And Disney's ABC.com has met with some success by running ABC shows with just a few ads, often from a single advertiser. But many TV executives say these methods don't bring much, if any, profit -- and therefore cannot continue." Nielsen will capture viewership data and consumers will put up with more commercials. And more advertising will bring more revenue.

On Demand is better than the DVR in one respect, the consumer doesn't need to proactively decide to tape something, it is simply available. But the DVR provides an important advantage too. It enables us to fast forward through inane, and way too many commercials, to enjoy the content, and only the content. American Idol in 40 minutes, Survivor in 42 minutes, and so in. Just two shows gives me back the time to watch more or do something else. It is the only way to watch. More on demand commercials will only help Tivo and the the DVR box.

NBC - Comcast Merger - Will It Be Approved

As Comcast and NBC present their case to the FCC why the merger should occur, many speculate if it helps or hurts free TV. Both companies say publicly that it will be better, but some worry that NBC will be turned into a cable model and others that it will be anti-competitive. One recent example is that Boxee has tried to place Hulu content on its service. Hulu, an NBC partnership, has said no. Under a Comcast ownership, the worry is that Boxee competes with Comcast products and would not be in Comcast's best interest. Owning content and distribution is problematic. For years, movie houses couldn't own studios for fear that they would not allow other studio product to be seen on the big screen. The analogy holds true here, too.

I also speculate what the future looks like. I see broadcast moving from digital, over the air and cable signals to an IP delivered product. Which affiliate you want to see is based on IP address and perhaps even zip code. As they and cable move to this model, the consumer will stop purchasing cable packages. Cable companies will charge more for broadband access to overcome the loss of the other two legs of its service, cable and phone. And consumers will seek more choices for those connections to broadband - cable, wireless, perhaps even other utility companies (electric), that can bring hi-speed into the home.

If Comcast owns a broadcast network, why would they facilitate this technological change. Like they have done with TV manufacturers, cable has hidden behind shoddy technology (set top boxes, Tru2way) to limit others from entering the cable space. Just now, we are seeing companies like Netflix work to bypass the cable limitations to reach the consumer directly. Why would NBC and Universal want to support this change if it only hurt their parent company.

In Multichannel, Senator Al Franken (D-Minn) looks at NBC's own history as a judge of what is likely to happen. "He said he was very concerned about the merger. He cited NBC claims in the early 1990s when the financial interest and syndication rules were phased out that networks would not favor their own programming over independents (those rules prevented networks from taking a financial stake in the domestic syndication of prime time programming). Franken pointed out that today NBC is the biggest producer of its own programming. He said that it is now 'routine practice, and you know it,' to demand at least part ownership in a show, and that independent status affects placement on the schedule." His concern is valid.

So NBC and Comcast will say what they must to get approval but it is important to see beyond their rhetoric to what this merged entity would really mean for the entertainment landscape. I believe it is not in our economy's best interest to approve this merger. It will limit competition, squash technological innovation, and ultimately hurt the consumer.

Sirius At The Super Bowl

The Who are appearing at the halftime show of the Super Bowl. The Who are also getting their own channel on Sirius. The channel is only scheduled to run for a week."Starting at 3 p.m. ET on February 4, Sirius XM Radio will offer a limited time, five-day programming block dedicated to rock legends The Who. Running through 11:59 p.m. on February 8, channel 16 on XM Radio and channel 40 on Sirius Radio will be strictly devoted to commercial-free content chronicling the group's 40 plus years on the musical scene, featuring such singles as "My Generation," "The Kids Are Alright," "Pinball Wizard," "I Can See for Miles," "Won't Get Fooled Again," "Who Are You" and many more. Recent album releases by the group will also be thrown into the mix, including content from the compilation "The Who Greatest Hits," and "The Who Greatest Hits Live," a collection of previously unreleased and newly mixed concert recordings from throughout the band's career."

Lots of stock speculation around Sirius. Analysts are betting the stock should hit a buck and investors have been buying and selling options to take advantage of the rumors. Even Liberty, who owns a large percentage of Sirius debt is seeing its shares bump up due to the positive news coming out of Sirius. It certainly is fun to watch!

Comcast Rebrands To Xfinity

Following in the steps of Cablevision who successfully rebranded its triple play services as Optimum a number of years ago, Comcast is stealing a page from their playbook. It's new name for its triple play of services is Xfinity. The new name seems an attempt to move people away from Comcast as a cable company and toward a more robust technological distributor. "Starting next week, Comcast will begin rolling out the new Xfinity brand -- Xfinity TV, Xfinity Internet and Xfinity Voice -- to customers in 11 markets: Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Portland Ore., Seattle, Hartford, Conn., Augusta, Ga., Chattanooga, Tenn. and parts of the San Francisco Bay area."

For Cablevision, the Optimum brand change was deemed successful. Some consumers actually thought they were a different cable company. And the new brand name could push new benefits and new value. For Comcast, the Xfinity name is attempting to do the same thing. Coming up with a new brand name is an arduous and difficult process. Many scoff at any name change and ask why change. When NYNEX became Verizon many years ago, many wondered what exactly a Verizon was. They successfully turned Verizon into a very powerful positive brand experience.

Comcast, and now Xfinity, face a similar challenge. Is Xfinity a great name. Who can say. What Comcast does to back up its new name with better technological products, better service, and better value is what matters most. If nothing changes, then Xfinity will simply be seen as a repainted pig and not a new brand. So change the name but also change the service. A better set top experience, a better on-demand and DVR experience. Yes put Tivo in every box. A better mobile experience. Yes, put Slingbox in every box. Back up the new claims and a new brand name can be very successful.

What's Up With Sirius?

It seems the stock price. Sirius is on a roll and shareholders are paying attention. Back in August, Sirius was trading under fifty cents and in the last couple of months, it's price is hitting near a dollar. That is quite a 100% jump in only 6 months. "Everything seems to be going the company's way these days, after capping off a roller coaster of a year in 2009, with the resumption of subscriber growth, free cash flow generation, and credit rating upgrades."

Can Sirius continue to grow or do they need to be acquired in order to capitalize on all the technological change occurring around them. Will it be necessary for Sirius to reduce it's number of shares through a reverse stock split in order to remain listed on NASDAQ? Will Howard Stern stay on and re-sign his contract? Lots of questions. But it sure is nice for shareholders to finally see a rise in the stock price.

Facebook Becoming Third Most Popular Website

Facebook usage continues to explode, while My Space appears to be a no show. According to Comscore, it is besting Yahoo and third to Google and Microsoft. "In December, 2009, Facebook attracted 469 million unique visitors, up an incredible 31 million visitors from the month before. To put that in perspective, in a single month Facebook gained as many new visitors as Yahoo did all year. That one-month gain was also the equivalent of adding as many people as all of Digg or half of Twitter.com." That is an amazing growth story.

But Facebook needs to adapt and change. While it is nice to read about friends' activities, it is too easy to lose site of best friends and relatives from simple acquaintances. There needs to be a better way to sift through the blather to more important friend comments. Also, it would be nice for Facebook to be an aggregator of current news, where friend's comment of those news stories could also be featured. Facebook is like the gathering tree, a virtual place to share real news as well as personal tidbits and gossip; to stay connected, despite living many miles away. That (and its silly games) make Facebook a must visit site every day.

iPad AND Verizon

Apple's iPad announcement had one big miss, no new wireless platform partners. Well the rumors abound that this situation should change. Verizon is still in the mix and an agreement could be announced by mid year. "Wall Street analysts who initially reported a Verizon-Apple deal -- which hasn't been announced yet -- made similar predictions today. They didn't know if Apple's hitch with Verizon was technical or business-related, but at least two analysts were confident that Apple would announce a Verizon deal sometime this year." Let us hope that news is true.