Dick Tracy It’s Not
February 28, 2007
Somehow, the multi-function high tech watch was cool when Dick Tracy did it, but these new devices from Citizen are cooked in wrong sauce. It’s got all the technical prowess but just screams “look at me, I’m a geek!” and not in a good way. 
Way Nerdy
February 26, 2007
A command line Unix program for ordering pizza, complete with batch mode. That’s why I’m a geek, not a nerd.
Bittorrent Video Store Launching
February 25, 2007
After several years of toiling Bittorrent is finally releasing something productive. Bittorrent is the latest P2P file sharing technology giving the music and movie business headaches. But unlike many of the other P2P networks that came before it, Bittorrent is also widely used for completely legitimate purposes as. Many software companies, for example, are using it to distribute updates to their code. In 2004 Bram Cohen organized Bittorrent as a company and received venture money to further develop the commercial potential of the technology.
Now Bittorrent is unveiling a video store with movie and tv shows available for rent or purchase. Unfortunately, Macintosh users
take it in the shorts again as they will use a Microsoft based DRM that will not work on Macs. Cohen and co-founder Ashwin Navin have spoken out against DRM before, noting that it creates many problems for them as a company and most likely encourages more piracy than it stops. In order for online media sales to reach their full potential, we either need a fully cross platform DRM solution or we need to drop DRM altogether. Some have called on Apple to license their DRM technology Fairplay. Even if they did, however, it’s not likely that Microsoft will adopt it and support it in Windows just as Apple does not support Microsoft’s DRM in OS X. By far the easiest and best thing is to remove DRM from the equation, but the current generation of entertainment industry management cannot get their heads around the idea. It could take a new generation of management, one that has grown up in the new media world and that has a better understanding of it to finally kill DRM.
Don’t Make Me Work For It
February 23, 2007
I never click on banner ads. For some reason, I clicked on this one, wanting to see what an online coupon looked like. I got this screen. I’m on a Mac with Firefox browser which is not uncommon. I’m not so desparate for your coupon, you just lost a customer because you don’t support one of the major browser choices. Dumb marketers.
Google V. Microsoft - A Shot Across The Bow
February 22, 2007
Google today announced they are officially releasing Google Apps for corporate purchase. At just $50 per user per year it’s a fraction of the price for Microsoft Office. Microsoft has hundreds of millions of Office customers, so it’s not time to call it all over just yet. But this is the first shot across the bow for Google in what will be a long campaign. What makes Google especially fit for the battle is their monetary power. Few competitors have been able to outlast Microsoft financially, but Google has funds to pull it off. Microsoft won the “browser war” against Netscape. Now get ready for round two, the Office war. This time, however, Google is a much stronger player than Netscape.
Will Joost Eat YouTubes Lunch?
February 21, 2007
The smart guys who brought us Kazza and Skype are in beta tests for their latest venture called Joost. It’s an online video service but it’s not YouTube. It is not clear how much, if any, user generated content will be available on Joost, but the service has had success signing commercial content from National Geographic and others. And right in the wake of the announcement of Viacom signing a big content deal with Joost comes news that CBS and Google can’t make a deal on CBS content for YouTube. If the major content owners see Joost as a better deal than YouTube, Google could be in for a long road. All of a sudden Google isn’t the fast, small disrupter anymore. Now they are the big giant and there is another fast, small company disrupting them.
XM+Sirius=Higher Prices?
February 19, 2007
I dissagree with Dan Gilmor in a recent post where he asserts the XM/Sirius merger will mean higher prices for consumers. As I said in my first post on the merger, less competition is worrysome for the general consumer, but I think raising prices would be a big mistake for the new company. Service is already a little pricy as it is and anything more and many customers may bolt. I have plenty of good content on my iPod. In reality, the combined content of both services should prove compelling enough for strong customer gains in the comming years. Customer aquisition costs could come down and not outbidding each other for high profile content deals will also lead to more cost savings.
XM and Sirius Close To Merger
February 19, 2007
It’s been long roumered and today reports are saying it will happen; the merger of XM and Sirius satallite radio. As a consumer, I’m pretty happy about it. I get the best of both worlds. I do wonder about the decreased competition as XM and Sirius both drove each other to innovate and sign content deals with the likes of Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, the NFL and MLB. Traditional radio is staggering and not much competition, but hopefully the new media of the Internet will keep the new company on it’s toes. Legal regulators did prohibit the merger of the two big satallite TV companies a few years back so we’ll have to see if they feel differently about the radio space.
UPDATE: The deal is done. Now, will the FCC allow it?
EMI Thinking About MP3
February 9, 2007
I didn’t think it would happen so fast, but just days after the Steve Jobs manifesto on digital music, sources say EMI is in talks to release a large portion of their catalog in MP3 format. Great news for music loving consumers everywhere. Let’s hope it really does happen. Why doesn’t Bill Gates get behind this as well for the Zune? They could have called it Bill & Steve’s Excellent Adventure.
Meanwhile at Warner, CEO Edgar Bronfman has a different opinion.
ABC/Disney Says Internet TV Works
February 8, 2007
By far the most groundbreaking network when it comes to new media and the Internet, Disney/ABC is reporting that it’s experiment in delivering TV content on their website via a streaming player has been completely successful. Advertising in the player for the first and second quarter this year is sold out and Disney is looking to expand its on-line digital markets even further.
Disney Chief Exec Robert Iger
“We think it is increasing the pie of media consumption” rather than cutting into TV ratings or DVD sales, he added.
Finally, someone who gets it. Maybe Steve Jobs is having a positive influence on what could be considered an old dog media company. I wish nothing but the best for ABC and Disney. Their continued success will put more pressure on all big media companies to keep pace in the fast changing new media landscape.