April 4, 2007
In case you were wondering why there was no posting last week, I took a working vacation around CTIA Wireless 2007 in Orlando. I really like spring CTIA as far as large trade shows go. It’s big enough to command a position as an industry focal point while not being so big that taking it in within the alotted days becomes physically impossible without an elite team of ninja bloggers or at least a Segway. Unfortunately, I have neither.
This year I moderated a panel at the Smartphone Summit on smartphones and media with panelists from Nokia, Microsoft, WiderThan, Sling Media and MediaFLO. The panel consensus seemed to be that, while both smartphones and wireless media are gaining consumer momentum, they’re not moving toward each other, at least not yet. Why?
- the relative newfound popularity of smartphones, particularly the QWERTY Windows Mobile variety, which are starting to move well under the $100 price tag
- the fractured state of smartphone operating systems, which make native development less profitable
- the focus on the mass market by carrier initiatives such as VCast and easy to use quick access features such as the “TV” button used by MediaFLO-enabled handsets.
Why develop media optimized for smartphones? For traditional broadcast media, there isn’t much financial incentive, but there’s surely an opportunity for one of the Web 2.0 companies out there to bring some aspects of community and interactivity to a wireless media experience
Will the iPhone goose this market? Well, depending on how you define “smartphone” — and my personal view of the term is liberal — it’s the first high-end device to focus on a consumer media experience, However, much like the WinMo phones, the experience is still based on sideloading, which carriers are at best tolerating and which fail to capture the true flexibility that wireless is supposed to bring us.
Incidentally, this is the 150th post that I referenced in the Out of the Box birthday post.
November 17, 2006
A few days before Jason Calacanis confirmed that he’s leaving AOL (the company that owns Engadget, where I write my weekly Switched On column) — and after trumpeting the “samurai” revolution he helped Jonathan Miller foment changing the online giant from a subscriptions-based service to an advertising-driven one - CNet’s Crave called the subsidization of Circuit City’s impending $99 Black Friday Compaq notebook by a Vonage subscription a “novel twist.” Crave notes that such offers came from AOL years ago. It is a bit of an interesting ploy for a company that doesn’t have many (ok, at least one) direct ties to the PC.
It’s no wonder that Wall Street continues to have concerns about Vonage’s marketing expenditures. As AOL (of the dial-up subscription business model) and TiVo know, it is difficult to move the needle when you’re competing with entrenched service providers. At least TiVo had a significant head start and a great brand with customers who loved the product and AOL had a huge ease-of-use advantage in its best growth years.
November 5, 2006
While pricey, Garmin’s nuvi portable navigation devices have been a big hit for the company, so much so that it’s attracting interest from other Mio-Tech with products such as the H610, another “crossover” device that combines pocket-sized portability with turn-by-turn directions. It’s usually hard to say no to smaller and the H610 looks like a nice blend.However, are turn-by-turn directions really the right target for a handheld product that better addresses the urban jungle than a forest trail? Wouldn’t it be great to have a product that let you know about shortcuts through parks and other places where no vehicle (at least one with a sober driver) would dare tread? Alas, I doubt the city navigator market will be large enough for many years to create a whole new navigation system designed for pedestrians. However, I’d settle for an integrated version of HopStop.
June 13, 2006
It looks like Verizon Wireless will take the high road and not market Chaperone to paranoid parents as protection for children and instead focus more on monitoring and communication. Indeed, much of the child-location service focuses on even more high-minded purposes, such as increasing a comfort level so that kids get more exercise. However, while services like Chaperone have the edge over pioneers such as Whereify in reaching the mass market and the phone is clearly a device that is starting to become more popular among the "tween" set, Whereify service offers more protection, such as automatically sounding an alarm when its watch-like device's band is broken.
Ideally, it would be great to see something as small as the shoe receiver used in the Nike+iPod system be tied to a locator, but then again the last thing we want to encourage in those who prey upon kids is strip searches.
Moving video — particularly high-quality video — around remains a difficult problem complicated by large file sizes, incompatible file formats, diverse sources and rights management issues. Last week at the DigitalLife Press Preview and other events, I met with several companies that see a bright future for more fluid exchange of this emotionally powerful content type.
- Seagate sees video as a key medium to drive storage, from the big racks of hard drives used to store it on Internet servers to microdrives inside portable video players and the relatively untapped area of mobile digital video. Rights management issues will need to be worked out for this dream to become a reality.
- Vongo. One of the favored competitors in the PC space, it offers a Netflix-like subscription without the queue as well as pay-per-view movies. Movies can be played on up to three PCs and the service is working on compatibility with Portable Media Center.
- ITVN. This company offers set-top boxes somewhat similar to Akimbo and offers a number of packages, including adult content. It's still putting the pieces together in terms of how different video packages might work. It offers the Starz feed as Vongo does, but displays it on a television without any Media Center machinations.
So, there are signs of progress, but it's still early. While ITVN and Vongo charge for their content, Apple faces a tougher battle here that it has with music because it's carrying a lot of content that people really do expect to be free.
May 31, 2006
AMD may have been late to RSVP to Microsoft's Media Center party, but its AMD Live initiative is easy to pronounce and easy to understand. Like Intel's VIIV, AMD Live! specifies requirements for processor horsepower and power consumption. It also focuses on personal content, an underutilized asset by PC manufacturers. PCMag,com lays out the software suite, which includes several excellent free Web services from Orb Networks and Streamload, but also some that, while useful, have little to do with multimedia or entertainment, such as Pure Networks' Network Magic and LogMeIn, a competitor to the better-known GoToMyPC from Citrix Online.
Speaking of Orb, Avvenu announced that it can now stream music files from your PC (like Orb) and mirror your files on its servers (like Google Desktop). The latter service will have a $30/year subscription fee. I've been a fan of Avvenu's simplicity, but I'll be interested to see how it handles MP3 files as its organization scheme is not the best.
Maybe it's playing a bit of catch-up, but AMD seems to be keeping pace with Intel on power consumption, the golden criterion cited by Apple in embracing Intel exclusivity. The Mac product line isn't broad enough to leave a lot of room for multiple chip suppliers, but switches aren't unprecedented. Ask IBM.
May 25, 2006
It will be interesting to see where pricing for the Presto photo printing service comes in. I think annual subscriptions are easier to swallow than monthly ones, particularly if a device is going to need consumables like the inkjet "photo mailbox" that Presto is planning. Presto is reminiscent of several previous attempts to entertain the lightly connected elderly or technophobes — WebTV, Cidco's MailStation and Ceiva, which still seems to be kicking around. Presto, though, seems like a product that is more attuned to its target demographic than Ceiva.
Presto's solution doesn't use the Internet, though, which leads me to believe that's using some kind of wireless network, which would be challenging to implement cost-effectively.
With all the focus on the Napster glasnost and Urge as part of the revamped Wndows Media troika, there's been a lot of discussion on the "closed" nature of iTunes Music Store and how it is the only online iPod-compatible store for music. This has never been the case. Long before the iTunes Music Store and even the iPod were launched, eMusic.com was selling DRM-free music in the nearly universally supported MP3 format. The downside has been that it hasn't been able to attract content from major — or even, it seems, many independent — labels.
I checked out the site for the first time in a while tonight. The layout is clean and easy to navigate, but I had a hard time finding much music I like and the site isn't helping itself posting AMG reviews that say things like this regarding Todd Rundgren And His Friends:
As well-intentioned as this was meant to be, it really doesn't add much to his catalog and essentially just gives session players like Steve Lukather and Kulick's brother, Bruce, a showcase for their talents. But they have already proven their worth on their own recordings, making this a non-essential item for all but dedicated Rundgren collectors.
Editorial integrity is one thing, but you'd never see such a damning review on Amazon.com. Worse, eMusic combines some of the worst of both worlds in charging a subscription fee for a limited number of downloads! In eMusic's defense, those downloads can be used practically anywhere digital music can be played, with no limits on the number of machines on which they can be used. Furthermore, unlike with services such as Napster, the songs won't expire if you cancel your subscription. Still, there's no way I could find enough content on the service to justify a subscription (although I admit I'm not a big fan of live music which is featured heavily), and that would certainly be true for more discriminating consumers.
As usual, some of the gems seem to be among unsigned artists but, if that's your bag, you're better off surfing garageband.com or cdbaby.com.
Depicting cell phones and digital cameras small enough to be worn like overgrown pendants have long been a marketing ploy by technology vendors even though consumers rarely carry them that way. Perhaps they have all striven to escape the "pocket prison" — that valuable real estate that can accommodate only one or two mobile devices. As exercise accessories, we've certainly seen many armbands that can accommodate bantam devices like the lightweight iPod Shuffle or iPod nano (or even their less bantam CD and portable tape playing forebears), but again it is pretty rare to see people wearing these devices outside of a gym or running track.
However, two new technology advances showcased this week show that we are indeed on the precipice of infiltrating technology into the everday. The Nike+Apple Sport Kit is an inexpensive accessory for athletic shoes that sell for as little as $85 while the Abacus 2006 watch appears to be the first one with Microsoft's SPOT technology that isn't conspicuously thick. MSN Direct has other obstacles, such as competing with increasingly savvy cell phones and building a subscription business, but both products represent fresh approaches to data-enabling formerly dumb devices.
May 18, 2006
Now that MTV Networks' Urge service is available, consumers will decide whether all of MTV's programming and context will drive them to a subscription model. Because of the editorial intelligence embedded into the service, Urge does an excellent job of enabling music exploration, an area where the iTunes Music Store continues to lag badly. One thing is certain: Windows Media Player 11 is a huge improvement over the previous version and presents music more graphically than iTunes. However, the iRiver clix, while one of the better digital media players from the WMA camp, is no iPod nano killer.
If you're among those who believe that Apple's success in the digital music space has bee due to aggressive advertising and promotion, Urge should certainly give Apple cause for concern as MTV Networks can promote its service around the clock on television for practically nothing.
