Interviews with Digital Media Thought Leaders
The Future of Apple |
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Apple is the most potent business shaping the future of media. Most any business affected by the changing characteristics of media will be directly impacted by the company's future innovations. Our 68 page report projects Apple's revenues for five years, estimates profitability by product line, identifies the company's future business opportunities, predicts Apple's ecosystem strategy, forecasts yet-to-be-announced products, and evaluates the impact on industry constituents. (March, 2010) Get a free report prospectus or Buy the entire report Now for $1,997.00 |
There is Something There at AppleTV
Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on March 15, 2010
Phil Leigh
Tim Cook, who is Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, was recently interviewed at a Goldman, Sachs investor conference. He repeatedly minimized the company’s market opportunity in the Digital Living Room of the Future. Instead he implied that portable devices would be the prime growth engines in the years ahead.
For example, he commented that Apple has “no interest” in the TV market and that “AppleTV” remains a hobby because the market size is small by comparison to that for portable units. In contrast he observed that the “vast majority of Apple’s revenue now comes from mobile devices and content purchased for those devices.” Read more…
Categories: Podcast Audio
Tags: Apple, AppleTV, Bill Gates, Future of Apple, iPad, iPhone, Phil-Leigh, Steve-Jobs, Tim Cook
Internet Video Subscriptions
Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on March 2, 2010
Video Insider Logo
Today’s post is a reprint of an article I wrote for Online Video Insider on March 2, 2010.
By: Philip Leigh
Since Shawn Fanning launched the original Napster about a decade ago CD music sales dropped by 50%. Unfortunately, legitimate digital downloads recaptured less than half the total. Given steadily compounding improvements in computer, storage, and network bandwidth, video-centric media companies have been apprehensively awaiting the new media Tsunami on their own shores. Many industry executives conclude it is now arriving. It appears their response is to (1) charge new incremental monthly fees and (2) increase existing ones. In short, after a decade to prepare, it looks like the industry’s most imaginative solution is to raise prices. Read more…
Categories: Podcast Audio
Tags: Apple, Future-of-Television, hulu.com, Internet-Movies, Internet-video, Market Research, TV Everywhere
Apple and The Digital Living Room
Podcast Video | Posted by Phil Leigh on February 23, 2010
About 20 years ago a character named Ray Kinsella in the movie Field of Dreams heard a voice urging him to plow under a portion of his Iowa farm to build a baseball field. Purely on faith he built it. Soon long deceased legendary players began to show-up for practice. Strangely, only Ray and his family could see the ghosts.
Later the same voice told Ray to visit a famous novelist who had mysteriously stopped writing after the 1960s. In the book upon which the movie is based, that author was J. D. Salinger. Ray brought him back to Iowa where he too could watch the players. Read more…
Categories: Podcast Video
Tags: Apple, Digital Living Room, Field of Dreams, Future of TV, Future-of-Television, Internet-video
The Future of Apple
Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on February 20, 2010
The Need:
Since the turn of the century Apple evolved from a secondary computer company into the most potent force transforming media. It is the premier Digital Media innovator as evidenced by the iPod, iPhone and most recently the iPad. Basically each introduction defined a new product category or enabled an incipient one to “cross the chasm” into mass market acceptance. More of the same is expected in the future, not only from products but also from transactional services.
Most any business affected by the future of media will be directly impacted by Apple’s future innovations. Moreover, its existing product lines alone will carry the company past the $100 billion revenue threshold in less than five years.
Revenue Forecast - Percent Sales by Product Line
Categories: Podcast Audio
Tags: Apple, future-of-advertising, Future-of-Television, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Market Research, Phil-Leigh, Steve-Jobs
Selling e-Books as Agent
Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on February 17, 2010
Phil Leigh
Amazon’s grudging agreement to act as agent when selling Macmillan e-books next month has important implications.
An agent is a business partner. However, Macmillan’s partnership notion is not fifty-fifty. The publisher concludes that they contribute more than twice the value of Amazon by taking 70% of the sales price for themselves and leaving only 30% for the online merchant.
There could hardly be a better example of irony considering that the 167-year-old publisher never found enough time to develop an e-book business on its own. Instead, 14-year-old Amazon.com invented the Kindle. To date Amazon has done more than any single business to launch the entire e-book industry, yet it gets the short end of the stick. Read more…
Categories: Podcast Audio
Tags: Amazon.com, Apple, Books, ebooks, Future-of-Books, Macmillan Publishing, Publishing Industry
Rewriting Apple’s History
Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on February 6, 2010
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As Mark Twain put it, “Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest don’t happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.” Normally the winners write history, but Apple’s success and lofty stock price has given a number of media executives a bad case of P/E envy. They’re distorting the past by accusing Apple of dictating terms of media consumption on the Internet.
For example, when Apple convinced the recorded music industry to sell digital downloads in 2003 it allocated seventy percent of the sales proceeds to the record labels and music publishers. One might suppose a business partner would be happy with a 70% share of incremental revenues, especially when that partner incurs almost no added cost. Perhaps they actually were smugly pleased with the deal originally. Maybe they figured Apple had been suckered into giving them more than twice as much as it kept for itself. Read more…
Categories: Podcast Audio
Tags: Amazon.com, Apple, book publishing, Future of TV, Future-of-Television, Hollywood-Studios, iPad, record-labels
Inventing the Future at Apple
Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on January 30, 2010
Phil Leigh
As Xerox PARC pioneer Alan Kay once put it, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”. Much like it did with the iPod and iPhone, Apple again invented the future when it introduced the iPad tablet computer in January.
From one perspective the iPad is an evolutionary extension of the iPod Touch. It uses the same operating system and user interface. Consumers familiar with the iPod Touch will quickly get the hang of the iPad. Neither device has a hard drive, or unpacks out of the box with a keyboard. Both can use the approximate 140,000 apps available at the Apps Store. The most obvious difference is the iPad screen which is about seven times larger. Read more…
Categories: Podcast Audio
Tags: Alan Kay, Apple, Cloud Computing, iPad, iPhone, iPod, New-York-Times, Steve-Jobs
Lessons from a Digital Media Pioneer
Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on January 23, 2010
Phil Leigh
Like the lost adventurer Carnehan from Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would be King, RealNetworks crept back into the news with the recent resignation of its CEO and Founder, Rob Glaser. Also like Carnehan Real hardly resembled the robust $12 billion market value industry leader it was at the turn of the Century having since dropped 95% in stock price. While Carnehan had an amazing story to tell, at least Glaser has an edifying one. Read more…
Categories: Podcast Audio
Tags: Apple, CATV, digital-media, Google, Microsoft, Phil-Leigh, RealNetworks, rob glaser
