July 15, 2007
Robert Scoble is clearly a man obsessed with Facebook. He’s mentioned it in posts every day from July 8th to the 15th and 27 times in this post. I can understand the excitement around the applications capability, the so-called “anti-MySpace”, that Facebook is creating, but I have mixed feelings about cracking the cover of Facebook due to my mixed experiences with social networking sites.
Probably the earliest one I joined was Ryze, founded in the dreary days of the dotbomb aftermath. I also joined Friendster in response to an invitation from my younger cousin, but I eventually removed my profile from both. I liked the open access of Ryze, but just became beseiged by invitations from people who seemed to have nothing better to do than build “friend” (don’t get me started on that word) networks all day, like there was some kind of prize for it.
I was skeptical of LinkedIn (my profile) at first, but while I can’t say it’s been a perfect or even necessarily very rewarding experience, it has enabled me to track down some old friends and stay current with others, maybe even learning of some interesting opportunities that didn’t necessarily go anywhere. Scoble praises Facebook pages for listing someone’s e-mail address and phone number, but LinkedIn will also provide an email link if you are connected to someone. One of my pet peeves about LinkedIn is that it defaults to listing concurrent roles chronologically rather than letting the user designate which should come first.
July 11, 2007
For years, TiVo seemed caught in a struggle trying to serve three masters that often had conflicting interests — its customers, broadcasters and cable and satellite companies. In the past few years, it has probably de-emphasized working with broadcasters, but it has stepped up efforts with advertisers and its main Internet video partner Amazon.
As Multichannel News reports, the move from Web-based to TV-based movie ordering from the Internet may ruffle the feathers of potential TV service providers as well as its most important cable partner today, Comcast. However, realistically Amazon Unbox and cable VOD are not direct competition yet. There’s still a significant delay before movies are downloaded although the movie selection is much greater, there’s still a fair amount of especially VOD content (particularly from premium channels like HBO).that you can’t get from Unbox. At least for now, you can think of VOD as Amazon Unbox for the masses.
And, hey, you FiOS customers, I heard today from a reliable source that Verizon is working on having 9,000 movies available on demand in the near future. That’s the equivalent of almost four video rental stores.
I intentionally don’t spend too much time talking about people here at The Box, but just picked up from NewTeeVee that Jm Louderback will be leaving PC Magazine and Ziff Davis to rejoin former TechTV colleague Kevin Rose at Revision3. I’m sure Jim will be happy to be more fully back in the video space.
Jim brought me to Ziff Davis in a freelance role in 2003 to launch and run Ziff Davis’s Wireless Supersite (eventually folded into eWEEK) and is a one-of-a-kind fusion of consumer technology expertise and marketing savvy. This is a great loss for Ziff Davis. That said, I congratulate Lance Ulanoff, who is taking over the helm at the venerable PC publication, and wish him well in his new role.
Finally, congratulations to Veronica Belmont, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at CTIA, on her new host post at Mahalo. She’s going to bring a great level of excitement and value to the human-powered search site.
I see some difference between Web “applications” sites such as Zoho or BeeJive (creators of the BlackBerry JiveTalk software so well executed that it is changing my life) developing versions of their sites (or in BeeJive’s and Cerulean Studios‘ case, native software applications), that are “optimized” (or in some cases, simply “work”) on the iPhone, but now AJAXy content megasite Digg has joined the iFray and surely others will follow. According to TechCrunch:
[Kevin] Rose notes that users can still browse the normal Digg website on their iPhone, but the web application is lighter and faster way to visit Digg and takes advantage of some of the iPhone’s user interface features.
So now it’s not the “watered-down Internet or the mobile Internet.” It’s the no-Flash, small-screen, big-buttoned ”iPhone Internet.” “Real” browser support should make such conversions less painful but they still suffer from some foibles that specialized versions of Web sites have engendered before. How do consumers find these optimized versions? Is it at iphone.blah.com? Is it at blah.com/iphone? Will all the features of the full site be there? How much work should Web developers have to do to compensate for the iPhone’s browser navigational inefficiencies, even if it is best in class at browsing “desktop” Web sites?
Even if you don’t accept everything about the iPhone as the wave of the future, there are clear advantages to the large screen and great Web rendering it provides. If a broader base of mobile phones adopt these conventions, Web developers should be able to provide one site that balances the needs of such handsets and the PC. Who doesn’t want lighter, faster Web sites everywhere?
P.S. Do you think Apple put any effort into making sure its Web iPhone developer guidelines site looks horrible in Internet Explorer?
June 23, 2007
Did you laugh when Sky Dayton and Jake Winebaum paid $7.5 million price paid for Business.com back in the boom under the vague pretense of turning it into some kind of B2B directory (remember net markets)? If so, the joke has turned out to be on you as the site, virtually devoid of content, is now raking in $15 million per year and is allegedly worth $300 million.
Think about how bad Internet businesses have to be to go bust when a parked domain name can become a business with respectable revenue and insane profit margins.
May 29, 2007
At Engadget, Ryan Block writes about Qigo, a system for enabling access to premium online content via physical keys. As Apple has proven with the iPod and iTunes store, it’s still a lot easier to sell atoms than bits, and Computer Associates will soon offer its Internet security software on a 2 GB USB flash drive that pops into a credit card holder.
While most kiddie gadgets are modeled after their adult counterparts, the Qigo concept seems similar to the Tiger Net Jet.
May 24, 2007
My friend and fellow Engadget columnist Jeremy Toeman takes HP to task for promoting “HDTV 2.0,” a marketing sobriquet for the notion of a television connected… to home networks and the Internet at least. What does this have to do with “HD”? Not much, except that the higher resolution makes it easier to display text and the more generally available digital inputs facilitate the attachment of computing devices. (Tracing the tortured history of digital television in the U.S. through Grand Alliance days, it looks like Microsoft in retrospect won the war over progressive scan.)
Does having another marketing term such as “HDTV 2.0″ add to the confusion? Yes. Does “full HD”? Yes. How about contrast ratios and refresh rates and three different microdisplay technologies? In terms of impact, HP will be lucky if the notion of connected television becomes important enough in consumers’ minds to raise any fear, uncertainty or doubt. This is particularly true for tasks other than receiving on-demand video over IP, where the goal is to emulate the familiar, evolving mainstream cable experience. But HP is still free to compete in the marketplace of ideas. The TV, so often a big piece of passive glass for which intelligence extends only to image processing, has a timely opportunity to play a larger role in the home network as consumers seek to minimize the clutter of the home theater.
May 1, 2007
When I first met with LaLa.com, CEO Bill Nguyen spoke about the importance of selection at online CD stores such as Amazon.com (which Apple had claimed during last September that the iTunes store was on the verge of passing). A recent meeting with LaLa’s John Kuch again touched on that theme. Apple’s selection in music, however, is not as rich as its selection in movies, and that’s the target of suddenly high-profile Vudu. After all, if instant access to a limited selection of movies had been so compelling, MovieBeam would have likely found a greater audience, and it was cheaper than the $300 being bandied about for its box, particularly after discounts. (I “overpaid” for mine at about $60 as I recall.)
So, armed with content from all of the majors save for Sony Pictures Entertainment, which may be facing corporate pressure to distribute to the PS3 (or not to further other strategic corporate interests), selection will likely be the trump card that Vudu plays as other solutions seem like they could probably circumvent any IP that the company may have with its in-house peer-to-peer content delivery network. Interestingly enough, the Times’ story quotes Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, the nearly 7 million members of which have to be considered low-hanging fruit for Vudu.
When I wrote about Apple TV versus TiVo and versus cable/satellite, I pegged programming depth and value as two areas where the digital media adapter was far behind. Vudu probably falls short too for now, but that could change fast if the company is really serious about competing with DVD and goes after the already aired TV show market. I’ll definitely have more to say about Vudu soon.
April 18, 2007
My fellow Jupiter Research alumni and I were excited for Dennis Crowley when Google acquired dodgeball, but it seems that it wasn’t a happy marriage as Dens (as his hipper friends call him) and his co-founder Alex Rainert (whom I met briefly at some Motorola party for the original ROKR, the product of another unhappy collaboration) have parted ways with Google and, for now, each other. Dennis becomes my second former Jupiter colleague to leave Google in the past few months with Pat Keane heading to the interactive division at of a three-letter network and picking up some three-letter titles in the process.
Dennis has joined the dungeon masters at area/code which, like former Jupiter CEO Gene DeRose’s company House Party (now being led by former Jupiter EVP of sales and marketing Kitty Kolding), brings people together in the world of atoms. Both companies seem to be leaning on promotional sponsorship opportunities as well. Whereas House Party focuses on the intimate setting of a host’s home, area/code games can envelop a whole city or even larger area. It sounds like a creative, exciting endeavor that should hopefully give Dennis more excuses to wear ’80s arcade character costumes.
Of course, I wish Dennis and (belatedly) Patrick great success in their new gigs, and continued success to Gene, Kitty and their partner Parker Reilly at House Party.
April 12, 2007
Nintendo has been a bit cagey picking and choosing its convergence, or at least non-gaming functionality, battles. Today the company announced the “final” version of the Wii Web browser, including functionality that has struggled as a standalone device (or maybe it’s been that subscription-fee bugaboo again). The Wii may even be muscling in on MSN TV’s core audience.
On the other hand, while the company has offered limited photo viewing via its SD card slot, there are no DMA features, which the Xbox 360 is including as an obvious Trojan Horse play. Wii has all the hardware on board to be a decent DMA though I doubt we’ll be seeing the “Wii Elite” (Weelite?).
Of course, at the other end of the horsepower spectrum, Sony has eschewed DMA features on its PS3 as well. This could also be remedied with a simple firmware update, but Sony has shied away from streaming from its PC to the television (but is going the other way), going straight to the Internet in terms of its upcoming Bravia module. On the other hand, Sony’s PC line is now unusual in that it makes only laptops and media center PCs intended to be directly connected to televisions.
Incidentally, Next Generation reported yesterday in the continuing consumer frustration with Wii supply despite its retail success. You heard it here first, folks.
