Wilson Mizner and Hulu’s IPO
Posted on August 23, 2010
Last week The New York Times broke news that Hulu is considering an IPO. The first line of the story identifies Hulu as a “rapidly growing online hub for television and movies” that could be valued at “more than $2 billion.” Not only was the news surprising, but the favorable coverage in a normally reputable newspaper was perplexing. However, as I pondered the matter recollections of the wit and wisdom of Wilson Mizner proved to be insightful.
Download Audio Narration to iPod, iPad, and iPhone (six minutes).
Like Dorothy Parker, Mizner is remembered more for his witty repartee than specific works. He was born a month before the battle at the Little Big Horn in 1876 and died at the bottom of the Great Depression. During the intervening fifty-six years Mizner participated in the Klondike Gold Rush, befriended Wyatt Earp, married the Yerkes widow whose first husband was the inspiration for a Theodore Dreiser trilogy, managed the Rand Hotel in New York where he posted such notices as “Guests must carry out their own dead” and “No opium smoking in the elevators”, swindled Florida real estate investors in the 1920s, managed Hollywood’s Brown Derby restaurant, and wrote movie screenplays including 20,000 Years in Sing-Sing staring Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis.
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Will Apple Make Televisions?
Posted on July 5, 2010
Unless it enables consumers to conveniently upgrade them without buying an entirely new set, Apple is unlikely to manufacture televisions. Instead it will more probably offer HDTV-compatible appliances that permit abundant Internet access on the TV screen.
Download audio narration to iPad, iPhone, or iPod.
Typically consumers buy a new TV every ten years. Presently a typical 52-inch model costs about $1,200. Presumably an Apple version would add Internet access, memory, and electronic intelligence thereby lifting the price even higher. If it adds as much memory and intelligence as contained in the MacMini, a hypothetical 52-inch Apple television would almost certainly be tagged over $2,000. (The MacMini is an Apple computer typically sold without a monitor.) Given such a price consumers would probably replace old sets at about the same once-per-decade rate. Read more…
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Ten Months Ahead of Bloomberg
Posted on May 31, 2010
Prompted by the recent GoogleTV announcement, last week Bloomberg-BusinessWeek reported that the product concept would revolutionize advertising in two ways. First, it would lead to a new policy whereby sponsors only pay for ads that get watched. Second, it would enable video ads to be better targeted.
However, regular Inside Digital Media subscribers recognize that we’ve been chanting this mantra since last July’s Future Developments in Video Advertising research report. Another example is our Thinking the Unthinkable about Video Ads last September. Read more…
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Music’s Next Evolution
Posted on May 20, 2010
David Pakman
Today’s audio podcast is an interview with David Pakman who has been a venture capital Partner with Venrock since 2008. Earlier he was the CEO of eMusic where he led the online retailer to sell more music download tracks than any competitor except Apple’s iTunes. Before joining eMusic he Co-Founded MyPlay which pioneered online music lockers. MyPlay was sold to Bertelsmann shortly after the turn-of-the-century. Earlier David was a digital music innovator with N2K and Apple.
To play audio podcast to iPod, iPad, or iPhone click here.
David believes that the recorded music business has reached yet another mutation point. Over the past decade worldwide revenues dropped from $40 billion to about $17 billion. Furthermore, unless the industry begins to proceed along a new evolutionary path he predicts the declines will continue for another five years before bottoming-out at perhaps $7 billion. Read more…
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Year Ahead of Wall Street Journal
Posted on April 19, 2010
Phil Leigh
Last week Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal reviewed a couple of new products from Hillcrest Labs. First, is a Web Browser built especially for big monitors such as televisions. Second is a hand-held device designed to control the browser remotely from a comfortable viewing distance as would apply when a TV is used as a computer’s display screen.
To play audio on iPhone, iPod, or iPad click here. (5 Minutes)
The browser, termed Kylo, contains big icons for 128 popular Web video sites. Navigation to other websites is via an onscreen virtual keyboard. Hillcrest characterizes the loop pointer as a remote mouse. About the size of a gymnastics ring the pointer offers gesture-sensitive control much like a similar unit for the Nintendo Wii. In point of fact, Hillcrest claims Nintendo is infringing patents.
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Apple, Occam’s Razor, and Adobe Flash
Posted on April 15, 2010
Phil Leigh
In the 14th century William of Ockham originated a logic principle later known as Occam’s Razor. Boiled down, it concludes that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is usually the valid one. For example, although Ptolemy’s geocentric model predicted planetary locations with reasonable accuracy, it was much more complex than the valid Copernican heliocentric model. By implication the Razor endorsed the Copernican model and even anticipated it by 100 years. Similarly the principle implies that Oswald acted alone, President Harding died of natural causes, and that Special Order 191 was lost through carelessness and not espionage.
To hear podcast on iPhone, iPad, or iPod click here.
Adobe’s Flash format accounts for about 80% of Web video, including YouTube. The only reason we can watch YouTube on our iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads is because the videos play through a special application. But when we visit websites containing Flash videos and advertisements with such devices, we simply can’t see them unless the hosting websites created special applications enabling them to play. That’s the principal reason a year ago that Inside Digital Media started using the YouTube player to exhibit the videos we record and post at our website. The situation is further complicated by the fact that video podcasts must be in yet another format favored by Apple, because podcasts are downloaded while Flash typically is streamed. Read more…
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How to use Google AdWords
Posted on October 31, 2009
If you want to learn how to set-up a Google AdWords account and start placing ads to sell merchandise from your website, this video is for you.
Perhaps the best way to teach others how to use Google AdWords is by concrete example. Thus, today’s video shows how we set-up an AdWords campaign to sell copies of our market research report, Future Developments in Video Advertising. Read more…
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What if all Video were on the Internet?
Posted on October 6, 2009
Download to iPhone and iPod here.
Last week I was on a panel at a conference for the Entertainment Law Institute of the Texas Bar in Austin. Our panel topic was “The Future of Video Distribution”. This video podcast summarizes my presentation.
Andy Grove, who was the last of the three original Intel leaders to leave, liked to encourage employees to ask “What if?” questions. He felt they could lead to new discoveries about future change. Thus, we ponder, “What if all video were on the Internet instead of Cable TV?”
Consider the impact on three constituencies, (1) Consumers, (2) Sponsors, and (3) Copyright Holders. Read more…
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