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Cablevision Accelleration!

Cablevision, which serves parts of the New York City region, announced Monday that it will sell new premium broadband services with download speeds of 30 megabits per second and 50 mbps to its residential customers. The company will also increase download speeds on its basic service from 10mbps to 15mbps at no additional charge to customers.

….

Cablevision has not disclosed the price of its 50mbps service, which also offers 50mbps of upstream capacity. The 30mbps service, which offers 2mbps upstream, will cost an extra $14.95 per month, or $9.95 more for customers who also have a voice over Internet Protocol phone line, the company said. Cablevision said the service will be available to all of its customers throughout its network by the middle of 2006.

CNET News.com

I love it!  I was actually just surfing on Verizon last night to see if FIOS was available yet (it’s not) and considering what it would be like to have even more speed.  30MB cable is just killer!!  Bring it on!

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The Future of Video Distribution

I previously stated I thought that the aggregator rather than the direct relationship was the way to go, and I still believe that to be the case.  Even Jeremy Allaire, who is definitely smarter than I am, concedes any direct relationship will take up to 10 years – if the shift were to take place.

Another compelling one comes from Jeremy Allaire, CEO of BrightCove. He believes that in the future, most consumers won’t rely nearly as much on carriers such as Comcast or SBC or DirecTV. In fact, they may not even rely on aggregators, such as Yahoo, Google, MySpace, or even Apple. Instead, he’s betting that increasingly, they’ll simply have a direct relationship with the owners of the content they want to see. Whether it’s the latest blockbuster movie, hot TV show or cult documentary, he’s betting that tomorrow’s more Net-savvy consumers will be able to use tomorrow’s more useful Internet to easily find what they’re looking for. “In the Interent model, you don’t need a Comcast to reach the consumer,” says Allaire.

It sounds far-fetched, and even Allaire says the transition would take ten years at least to get serious. A lot has to happen. For example, we’ll need true device convergence, so that video piped into a home could be viewed on either your PC, TV or any other screen-equipped devices that come into existence.

Business Week Online

In my view the direct relationship is possible though less likely since it would imply that I can simply and easily find it all.  How would this work?  Would I subscribe to a feed with keywords (in iTunes, Google / Google Reader), browse a directory of interest (in iTunes or Yahoo) or would I search and click (Yahoo or Google)? 

Personally, to see it as a purely direct relationship means that people are interested in working to find what they want, rather than relying on a system that makes it easier through either editors or a user based folksonomy like a del.icio.us, which would still need to download and sync to your machine and portable devices.

Assuming the networks are not blocked for use, you can develop an aggregated relationship through a portal or application (serving as a portal).  The reason Podcasting is mainstream is ease of use through iTunes.  Mass media types see this.  Before it was simply geek tech.

Again, keep it simple, make the customer happy.

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Online Video – Search vs. Syndication

I was just reading a piece in Media Magazine called Which World Will Get Video? (no link) and thinking how mainstream media does not get it.  The basic point of the piece is that big media can be in control and that rather than allow Google iTunes or Yahoo to control how people get your content, search could be optimized to bring viewers (even paying ones) to your (publisher) sites.

Nice thought, but this is so wrong and such an old way to even be considering how it really works.  First, lets revisit the early web days when record labels though they’d be creating the places where consumers came to listen or to find out info on bands.  Failed.  Why?  We don’t care what label artists are on as consumers, the band is the brand.

Back to the “new” way proposed by Chistopher M. Schroeder in the piece mentioned above.  I did a google search for your article pal and you are no where on the first 3 pages of results which is all I cared to try to even find your work for a referential link.  You lose.

Consider this, I still don’t have or want a relationship with HBO directly or with ABC or any network.  In many cases, the networks air shows produced by other companies anyway, they are simply a conduit for viewing on TV.

I do however have a relationship with Apple’s iTunes (I spend both money and time), Yahoo (time) and Google (time).  Why challenge that?  Why not work with me and my choices as a consumer and provide value in the form of content?  I’ll pay for the good stuff…

Consider my previous post.  Deliver it to me.  Don’t make me find it.  Be smart and don’t waste energy with mistakes that have been made already – again and again.  I can easily add a private feed (address given after card is dinged for payment) or you can use an existing aggregation service like iTunes which can handle payment and distribution.

Keep it simple, make the customer happy.

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The future of media is here now

Leaving aside the rights issues, which I know are large, if I were a television executive right now, I’d take my content, microchunk it, put a couple calls to a video ad server in the middle of it, and let it go whereever it wants to go, safe in the knowledge that whenever the show is viewed, I’ll get to run a couple 15 second spots in the middle of it (which I could change whenever I wanted to and which I could measure).

A VC: The Future of Media (aka Please Take My RSS Feed)

The tools are in place… bring it on!! 

RSS and Podcasting (more RSS) can deliver a highly relevant messsage to a highly targeted audience.  It’s not about mass marketing at all, which seems to be a significant obstacle for some clients who refuse to see the logic here.

This is beyond early adopter, we have a whole new platform to deliver either existing content (via Microchunks as Fred calls it) or new content focused on the target (unique pod / vidcasts).

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Amazon Mechanical Turk

Amazon Mechanical Turk provides a web services API for computers to integrate Artificial Artificial Intelligence directly into their processing by making requests of humans. Developers use the Amazon Mechanical Turk web services API to submit tasks to the Amazon Mechanical Turk web site, approve completed tasks, and incorporate the answers into their software applications. To the application, the transaction looks very much like any remote procedure call – the application sends the request, and the service returns the results. In reality, a network of humans fuels this Artificial Artificial Intelligence by coming to the web site, searching for and completing tasks, and receiving payment for their work.

Amazon.com Help: Amazon Mechanical Turk

Whoa.  MTurk is getting slammed right now so I can’t try it, but certainly sounds pretty cool.

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Google Print

Google Print is live and I just gave it a quick shot.  Note the highlight in the link through on my search for Steve Jobs.  That’s pretty slick if you ask me.  I’d like to see Print added to the list of options when you do a regular search, which I imagine is inevitable, unless a law suit stops things.

You can’t get the text, the results are an image which should make copyright holders a bit less concerned.  You can however sit and read the book though if you like… though image text is nothing close to the clarity of real text on screen.

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What’s Live?

I don’t get Microsoft’s Live gadget.  It’s hard to call it more than just a gadget since it’s so rough around the edges, it makes you wonder how much they rushed it out the door.  They missed Web 2.0 and I’d imagine are feeling some serious heat from Google, but with the sheer number of people they can throw at things, you’d just expect more… oh but then I recall MSN, which is another site I just don’t use.

I’m not much of a home page user.  I like my browser blank on start and choose to either fire up Bloglines or some specific site when I get going.  Live is not even in contention at this point.  Aside from the obvious, only works in IE, it’s just not well executed in my book.  The Google personalized home page crushes it in usability and they have not made any real changes there since I first checked it out a few months back.

I’ll give them credit on the URL though… I wonder when they purchased it…   Whois shows it’s been in the system since 1994, but the last change was on Halloween.  There is no clear connection to MS…

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Amazon Rocks

It looks like Amazon has quietly rolled out a new feature called Digital Wallet that allows customers to stream full digital audio from albums they have pre-ordered. No word if the service will extend to all CDs purchased through the store, specifically CDs that are currently available, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

eHomeUpgrade

Amazon Rocks – literally.  This was something previously discussed as an idea for iTunes as well, though instead of a stream offer physical fulfillment so you get both instant gratification and control over future formats and playback. 

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Premium Distributed Content from Apple?

I’ve been thinking about the iPod 5G and the video capability in iTunes and the ITMS and considering the success announced this week believe that it’s quite possible for things to accelerate much more rapidly towards a new network model.

If you think about the manner in which you subscribe to a podcast and apply that to a TV show, you can probably agree that it’s easy to see offering beyond the single pricing for programs.  If you add in the rest of the networks and possibly some cable access (Comedy Central) – even consider shows from premium networks like HBO and you can see a pretty intense disruption to how we collectively understand how TV works.

The current iPod supports a doubling of the current 320×240 resolution, which is great, but not ideal yet for true home watching.  It’s even better for portable viewing, but that’s about it for now.  Perhaps what’s missing is some additional networking capabilities within iTunes… like Bit Torrent.  As you enable a richer level of subscription content, it’s quite likely that the economics of delivering the materials could change considerably.  Let’s not forget that there’s more than just licensing to deal with here and in fact the bandwidth required to deliver high resolution content on a mass level could be quite considerable.  Assume Apple can nail this piece  – if not Bit Torrent for political sensitivities, than perhaps Kontiki or some other more acceptable private version of P2P. I don’t want to understate the shift this would create with how iTunes works, but it could be a very good thing to consider.

If Apple cut deals with quite a few networks for content – even movies, you would not need a cable or satellite box to bring you programming you like.  I’m hopeful that when the day comes, we’ll see something similar to how HBO on-demand works which is that if you choose to watch on the day, you can, but if you want the on-demand option (not recorded from DVR) you have to wait 24 hours.  This is quite reasonable to me and matches how ABC is offering their shows to Apple now.

You would still probably keep traditional viewing going for “appointment TV.”  Things like sports, and special live events are prime candidates, though streaming is an option as well especially as our network access speeds increase…If you still retain the basic options through your cable or satellite provider, you’ll need to pay more just for the right to have that option, unless you switch over to antenna viewing.

At $1.99 per video how much would your subscription run with Apple?  Well, if I look at my own viewing habits…  I watch (or try) to watch about 7-10 shows a week.  It’s pretty hard currently to keep up with my DVR actually and I usually watch a few in succession on Friday or Saturday night.  We record a few more shows for my wife and daughter so if I add it all up we probably consume closer to about 15 shows a week.  That’s about 30 bucks a week to Apple if we could subscribe on a per show basis and 120 bucks a month which is WAY more than I currently pay for cable and for considerably fewr channels. Let’s not forgot as well that this is the current pricing for low res material and that the cost for high res (not even high def) would be more.

Clearly there are some economic issues that quickly add up with per show pricing.  Admittedly I don’t have the solution here…

I do however see a future through iTunes with Front Row and what else might be planned here.  Any subscribed video would be available through Front Row and as we already know this runs on machines beyond the current iMac so a small form factor box like our friend the Mac Mini makes an excellent future candidate for the living room.  I’m sure though this type of machine gets even more capable when the switch to Intel takes place.  Intel already has reference platforms of this size and has shown their Viiv technology running on them. Imagine the enhanced capabilities with a more powerful processor, digital audio and surround capabilities.  Enhanced transcoding capabilities (PDF) will make transfer to portable devices like the iPod or multi-room viewing very attractive and allow for higher resolution content to delivered to a larger screen (whether TV or computer).

As we step beyond single show downloads towards subscription models through syndication and P2P, TV and of course the Long Tail content we already download becomes an extremely viable source of programming through non-traditional sources.  On-demand services are just beginning to deliver and will hopefully continue to grow rapidly to meet the pent up demand.

Update – I was just checking in with Memorandum and see that News.com has a piece on this worth a read.

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Apple sells 1 Million Videos

“Selling 1 million videos in less than 20 days strongly suggests that there is a market for legal video downloads,” Jobs said. “Our next challenge is to broaden our content offerings so that customers can enjoy watching more videos on their computers and new iPods.”

Tech News on ZDNet

Not quite the 4 days it took for music sales to reach 1 Million, but still quite impressive.  I’d say there is a legitimate desire for video and that people are definitely comfortable on the small screen.

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MCE vs. TiVo??

Thomas Hawk pointed me to an interesting piece written by Alex Raiano at the TiVo Blog comparing MCE to TiVo.

First, thanks for blogging on TiVo (Alex specifically), but what the hell are you thinking with this?  MCE certainly has a DVR (at least in systems that ship with TV tuners), but it’s about much more.  You only do one thing!  While it can be argued you do it very well, the MCE value proposition is clearly about more than just the recording of TV. 

Perhaps the MS marketing department needs to be reminded that while TV is easy to grok, there are also Photos, Music, Videos (your own) and the Online Spotlight which can deliver quite a bit of additional content.  Only the MS bloggers seem to actively promote this.  I think actually even with 2 tuners inside MCE loses the battle on a purely DVR front since it really just comes down to money.

A $1,200 DVR is out of the question for most people.  I completely agree.  In fact while I could probably swing a $1000 DVR, I find it’s ridiculous to even consider when I can get a dual-tuner HDTV capable recorder for 10 bucks a month from my cable company. MCE does not even record HDTV.  OTA HDTV is not good enough… I need to record premium stations like HBO, not just NBC.

Thomas immediately brings up many of the advanced features power users enjoy from a richer platform like MCE which Tivo does not even try to deal with from a feature perspective.  Sure you can network your Tivo, and add additional features to it, but this is beyond the main base purpose and I believe well beyond the capabilities of most owners. 

MCE gets weaker as you expand out since while it is a jack of all trades, it really (and unfortunately) is a master of none.  While a fully functioning PC underneath the MCE interface is attractive
to some people, this hurts you.  A PC has issues like malware, viruses
and of course device drivers and conflicts. 

Tivo is probably best as an ingredient within another platform at this point – Apple Front Row perhaps? 

In the end other than the DVR, which is the purpose of TiVo and a single feature of MCE, is the only comparable detail.  If you look purely at that TiVo clearly wins on price and picture quality, but MCE has two tuners or more in some addvanced systems.

MCE actually makes the market more complex since while a DVR is in there, it’s about selling PCs.  Speaking of which, when you get to the bunddling issue as Alex addresses … many people are starting to buy MCE devices because the software is in there, though I also wonder how much use they get from the full set of capabilities.

I started this with a point, which I think I’ve lost… Comparing the two things is a slippery slope for both sides.  If I worked for MS on MCE, I would work pretty damn hard to simplify the experience so that there was a more mass appeal.  Telegraph the benefits on a higher level and let the advanced users (your existing market) take care of sharing the benefits with each other – which happens today through community sites and enthusiastic bloggers.  Tivo – get cracking on some bundling and adding multiple HD tuners… next year is getting closer, but how much will that cable-card capable box really cost?  If around 1000 bucks, MCE creeps into mind pretty significantly.

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Digg gets financed

Congrats to Kevin Rose and team!  I really like the Diggnation pod / vid cast and enjoy using the site as well.  I’d describe it as Slashdot 2.0 (ala Web 2.0), and you’ll find a good mix of stories – though mainly tech.

Digg, a new San Francisco Internet start-up, seeks to rank news items by letting people choose which stories they like anywhere on the Web.And it just received $2.8 million in venture capital from some big-name investors, including Omidyar Network, the outfit led by eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, and Greylock partners.

MercuryNews.com | 10/28/2005 | Tagging the news you want to use

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College Life, Powered by Google

You spend your life dealing with information. A lot of it is academic, a lot more is personal, it all matters, and you can probably use better tools for handling it effectively. On this page, we’d like to introduce you to a few of them.

College life, powered by Google

This is just a smart thing to do.  Not that college kids don’t know about Google, but this page does a nice concise job positioning some solid tools.

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Proprietary web applications kill openess and standards development

At work, I use Flock like I do at home and before Flock I was using Firefox since I have a basic disdain for IE.  This is fine for my basic needs, but frequently – and I mean frequently I am forced to switch over the IE in order to use our world-wide extranet which is based on SharePoint.

It’s not worth reading a rant on SharePoint (I can assure you it would be long) but what I don’t get – is why (for legitimate reasons) I need to use IE.  If this is the era of Web 2.0 the browser of your choise (assuming it supports standards) should be more than acceptable for any mission you choose.  Instead, what I find is that browsers do not work, or don’t work well with quite a few sites.

CNet recently ran a story talking about job seekers running into company job application sites which won’t work on the Mac, again based on only working on Windows IE.  This would not only frustrate me (I ran into this myself in my last round of job seeking), but I just find it ignorant more than anything.

To me, and I’m not a developer, this is just laziness.  If I choose to login to my company webmail from home on one on my Macs, I have to enter my credentials at least 3 times sometimes 4 to have them accepted by Exchange.  If I use IE for Mac, it works on the first time.  Our time entry system is the same thing… if you use anything but IE, you don’t even see some of the menus – assuming you can successfully login.

I’m certainly not switching to IE for my main use, but find that I run it as if it’s Word or Excel in order to access certain things… instead of just opening another tab in my existing browser.  Gotta love how this forces addditional system resources to be deployed for a rather limited purpose.  I’d yet to run the task manager to compare, my dell crap-top certainly feels the pain when I start opening a second browser adding to it’s burden of trying to keep up with me.

I’d love to boycott systems and companies that force this type of usage, but instead it’s the developing community that needs the wake up.  This type of limiting work is a dead end in what should be the new, new world of Web 2.0.  The browser is a conduit and with simple standards, it would be accessible to anyone.  Let’s not mess that up more than we already have now.

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Simultaneously Releasing Movies

The idea of a movie being available on DVD or VOD the same day it’s released in a theater is very attractive to me.  There have been plenty of times in the past few years when I was not able to get to a movie for whatever reason and have simply waited for Netflix or my cable VOD service to get access…

With a simultaneous release (even at a higher price for non-theater viewing) I’d be able to enjoy the same film, on my terms.  This is a great addition to the Home Theater experience, or the HTPC experience if delivered over IP.

Clearly the plans being developed by Mark Cuban, Morgan Freeman’s Clickstar and now the Independent Film Channel are cause for some controversy:

In an interview before his speech, Shyamalan said he planned to ask theater owners at ShowEast’s Final Night Banquet and Award Ceremony “for zero tolerance on this — to say, ‘If you’re gonna release a movie in another medium, then you’re not going to get into our theaters’ — because at the end of the day, they hold all the cards.”

Shyamalan: Day-and-date ‘life or death to me’

I really hope it does not come to this and that perhaps as a consession, the DVD release is pushed.  On-Demand though would really make things considerably more available.  Please charge more money…I’d definitely pay for the convenience.

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Flickr Prints!

Finally!!!

Flickr has implemented printing on an official basis — if you are in the US. For now, you can order prints and have them fulfilled through Target. You can either pick them up the store or have them delivered to your home.

The best part is that you can control who can order prints based on your contacts. My family and friends can finally get off my back on why I use Flickr when they can’t order any pics.

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Is it really the picture?

While Thomas thinks it’s all about the picture, that unfortunately is just a detail.  There are plenty of other details that need attention as well… music library management is certainly a key piece — but I think it’s really much more about the whole package. MCE is too complicated, period.  

Picture quality is so super important. I would agree with the observation that the television picture quality on a Media Center PC has never approached that of even an entry level non HD TiVo. This is the single biggest obstacle in the way of Media Center acceptance. We must get a better picture — preferably CableCARD or Satellite or IPTV HDTV. I’m hoping we see this improve in Vista.

Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection: Media Center Gets Slashdotted

Don’t get me wrong, I want solid crystal clear images from my DVR and don’t think that’s too much to ask. I believe though, that until the computer part of the system is masked (no virus pop-ups, device drivers etc) this thing is in trouble from a mass adoption perspective. The idea of a 10′ UI is a good thing, it just needs some serious refinement.  When I recently attended the Digital Life show in NYC, I stopped by the Microsoft booth and played with an MCE device, presumedly the latest.  Switching between screens / modes required far too much wait time, with loading icons…  I can’t possibly bring something like that into my living room without expecting a family conflict about how much more complex and annoying I’ve made things.

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Value in Social Bookmarking

One of the cooler functions of social bookmarking and rating systems is that the story can come from anyone.  I posted a link to del.icio.us last night on Front Row running in the wild on Mac Minis and pretty much any other system and today it’s running as the second most popular story / link.  This is cool since it means quite a few people are tracking on the same stuff, but more so since it means we can all contribute to the items that are interest.  I’m not exactly an A-List blogger and this story still pushed to the top within a pretty wide array of new items and within a very short period of time.

Social systems like Digg and potentially Ma.gnolia

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