Apple and The Digital Living Room
Posted 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…
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Rewriting Apple’s History
Posted 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…
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Content is King (Like Cotton)
Posted on December 12, 2009
Phil Leigh
Comcast bought NBC to gain control over content distributed by its CATV system. Time-Warner advocates that popular TV shows be made available on the Internet only to consumers already subscribing to conventional Cable and Satellite networks. Prominent publishers require that new book releases be hard-cover-only thereby delaying ebook versions by four months. Such actions reflect the spurious notion that “Content is King”. Unfortunately it’ll prove to be about as effective as King Cotton diplomacy was for the Confederacy. Read more…
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Television of the Future
Posted on November 28, 2009
If you want to learn what the future of television will look like, this video podcast is for you.
Despite recent publicity about favorable consumer response to services providing only limited Internet Videos at our TVs, ultimately nearly everyone will demand unlimited Internet access on televisions. Services like Amazon-Video-on-Demand, iTunes, and Netflix Watch Instantly via devices such as TiVo, Blu-Ray Players, and Xboxes are merely going to whet consumer appetites for unrestricted Internet access on TVs. Read more…
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What if all Video were on the Internet?
Posted on October 6, 2009
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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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Training For Internet Advertising
Posted on May 12, 2009
Leslie Laredo, President, The Laredo Group
If you would like to learn how advertising agencies, media buyers and other media professionals learn their ways around new media, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Leslie Laredo who is the President of The Laredo Group . Her company is a leading training and consulting firm concentrating in online advertising buying and selling, search engine marketing, and site optimization. The Laredo Group provides general sales training for companies and individuals, media training for buyers and sellers, and custom consulting services for traditional, online, and cross-platform sales and marketing activities. Read more…
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Third Generation Television: Third Catalyst (Long-Tail)
Posted on January 26, 2009
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If you would like to learn how the growing abundance of Long-Tail content is driving consumers to get Internet Video on their televisions, this video is for you.
In earlier podcasts we demonstrated the first two catalysts. The first is the concept of a “Media Controller”, the initial version of which is the commonly available laptop computer. When a laptop is connected to the television, the TV functions as a giant monitor while the Internet-connected computer enables users to watch Internet Video in a lean-back experience with remote mouse and keyboard.
The second catalyst is the growing availability of popular TV shows and movies at ad-supported websites that are free to the viewer. The best example is www.hulu.com.
Today’s show is about the third catalyst which is the rising interest in Long-Tail content available on the Internet but not on conventional TV. The 5 billion monthly streams at YouTube are only one indication of just how massive the interest really is. Examples include out-of-syndication TV shows, older documentaries, personality interviews, and instructional videos. Read more…
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Sound and Fury at Consumer Electronics Show
Posted on January 22, 2009
The annual Consumer Electronics Show has achieved such high-profile recognition that exhibitors are tempted to promote modest improvements as breakthrough advances. The sound and fury over “Internet-Connected TVs” at this year’s show is a good example. Upon examination it is clear that if the product announcements signify anything at all it is that the difference between a “Walled Garden” and a “Walled Prison” can be indistinguishable, as Napoleon III discovered. But that’s another story, and a good one. Read more…
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