Netflix - Only Yesterday
Posted on September 20, 2011
Just last month Columbia Business School professor, Jonathan Knee wrote in Atlantic Magazine.
“Netflix…engenders fierce (customer) loyalty…even beating-out reigning champion Apple, among 528 other brands…Most observers expect the company to have over 30 million subscribers by the end of the year. Netflix is the rare aggregator…which (excels) in customer service and (product perfection) by harnessing customer feedback.”
Download six minute audio narration to iPhone, iPad, or iPod.
Since Knee’s month-old accolades, Netflix management announced (1) a 50% reduction in projected third quarter subscriber growth, (2) an apology for prompting a million customers to abandon the service in response to price changes, and (3) a formal division of company’s services into (a) streamed video and (b) postal delivered DVDs. Read more…
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eBook Implications for Hollywood
Posted on April 26, 2011
Years from now February of 2011 will be considered a media turning point.
It was the first month when e-books outsold all other categories including paperbacks. According to the Association of American Publishers (AAP), domestic e-book sales tripled from the year-earlier month to over $90 million. Unfortunately for the established industry the news is probably worse than reported because AAP only records e-book sales for sixteen traditional publishers. Yet activity at Amazon.com confirms an enthusiastic surge of self-published titles not included in AAP numbers.
Download audio narration to iPod, iPhone, or iPad here — five minutes
Even more significant, self-published authors are discovering that low price is a viable path to popularity. As the chart below illustrates, the statistical distribution of e-book sales at Amazon.com last Wednesday was bimodal. Over half of the top fifty titles sold at two price points. Sixteen sold for $12.99 and were provided by traditional publishers. But twelve sold for only $0.99 and were presumably self-published. 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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Will Consumers Pay for Hulu.com Videos?
Posted on November 7, 2009
Phil Leigh
Will consumers pay to watch TV shows and movies at the hulu.com website?
Hulu.com’s website hosts popular TV shows and movies after they have been released normally. Owners include Disney, NBC-Universal, and News Corporation (Fox). Viewers can watch shows for free but in exchange must also watch commercials since the videos are streamed and not downloaded. Last month, Chase Carey who is the President of News Corporation said that Hulu should start charging fees sometime next year. Presumably he envisions a premium subscription service providing more content or viewing time in exchange for a monthly fee. Read more…
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Stories Abide
Posted on October 24, 2009
Phil Leigh
Inexorable expansion of the Internet results in a lockstep growth in anxiety about threatened obsolescence among incumbent media participants. Yet whatever the changes affecting media, storytelling remains the timeless value.
Even before humanity learned how to record them, the Greek Myths were passed down from generation-to-generation by oral repetition. Itinerate poets travelled around the Eastern Mediterranean retelling the stories of The Iliad and The Odyssey before Homer wrote them down about 3,000 years ago. While the media changed from spoken word to written text, the public appetite for stories was undiminished and may have even accelerated. Read more…
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How to Watch iPhone Movies on Your TV
Posted on September 3, 2009
If you would like to learn how to watch movies on your TV that were downloaded to your iPhone, this video is for you.
Every iPod or iPhone owner knows they can buy digital music at Apple’s iTunes online store. Most also realize they can rent or purchase movies and TV shows there as well. Finally, many are aware that numerous free video and audio podcasts, some including popular TV shows, are also available. However, few understand that it is not difficult use iPods and iPhones to watch the movies stored on the portable units through a conventional flat panel TV. Read more…
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How My Video Consumption Changed
Posted on August 17, 2009
Phil Leigh
If you would like to learn how my media usage changed during a recent period of enforced idleness, this audio program is for you.
Owing to medical leave during the past two-weeks I have been relatively inactive at the office. This led to an increase, as well as a change in the pattern of, media consumption. Today’s podcast explains how. Read more…
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Profound Implications of Video-Centric Wikipedia
Posted on July 23, 2009
Phil Leigh
If you would like to consider the implications of a video-centric Wikipedia, this audio program is for you.
As reported in Technology Review, the Wikipedia Foundation will soon be launching an editable online video encyclopedia. According to Alexa, Wikipedia is the World’s seventh most popular website. Consider how often you visit the site and ponder your reaction if many of its articles provided relevant video. Read more…
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