a multi-tasked stream of consciousness or perhaps just emails to myself
The software giant’s founder, Bill Gates, will unveil a new package designed to give the firm a stronger foothold in the cable TV industry. [BBC News | TECHNOLOGY]
No real details just yet, though it should be interesting to see if this is set-top related or something that runs in the back office… set-top plans were blunted previously.
Forbes.com is running a pretty intriguing article on who might buy AOL based on it’s dropped value and the alleged interest of AOLTW to sell. Personally I can’t see Microsoft allowing anyone – especially Yahoo to outbid them.
“If Yahoo! is worth $18 billion, then I think you can make a case that AOL is worth more than zero,” says Fahnestock & Co. analyst Peter Mirsky, who notes that conservative estimates value the online unit at about $7 billion.
Certainly now is not the time for AOL and Time Warner to separate. That would only guarantee a rock-bottom price tag, a valuation that will surely improve with time. Meanwhile, the pending initial public offering of the Time Warner cable properties, which could raise $4 billion, promises a more immediate windfall. And that’s not to mention the $750 million in found money that the courts ordered Microsoft to pay last week to settle AOL’s antitrust claims.
When the time does come, Internet outfits struggling to boost their own subscription services are logical buyers. “[Microsoft’s Internet service provider] MSN would be salvaged overnight,” says Bibb. “And with AOL subscribers, Yahoo! would have a complete business model. They need another leg on the chair besides advertising, and they’ve been adding all these little subscription services, but this is the one they want.”
Also on Bibb’s list of likely suitors are Baby Bells like SBC, BellSouth or Verizon Communications. “They’d love to have 26 million [U.S.] subscribers that they could market phone and Internet service to and then gradually upgrade them to broadband,” he says.
Narrowband has been all but left for dead, but it’s still got some life in it. Right now 70% of the 75 million households online use dial-up, according to broadband research analyst Gary Arlen. He estimates that in the next few years that proportion will dip to 50%.
Not exactly…
Last week’s antitrust settlement created a buzz reminiscent of the one the AOL-Time Warner merger begat. But the biggest similarity, writes CNET News.com’s Declan McCullagh, may be misguided hype. [CNET News.com]
Direct Marketing of course! It all starts with collecting data on usage and viewing preferences. Then targeting relevant programming and commercial messages to people who will be genuinely interested. Good for TiVo here… I doubt it will be the only player in the data market. Look for Replay to do this as well (my guess). I would also imagine that any foray by cable company or telco into the ITV/PVR marketplace will certainly include both the ability to track usage as well as the ability to target against it.
TiVo Plans to Sell Information on Customers’ Viewing Habits
TiVo, the maker of digital video recorders, is starting to sell information about the viewing patterns of its customers to advertisers. [New York Times: Technology]
Like other U.S. telephone companies, Qwest is getting set to pump video and TV services into homes in order to counter recent moves by cable providers to sell Net-based phone services. [CNET News.com Communications]
Qwest is the third of the nation’s four major phone companies to tip its hand about upcoming video services. SBC Communications recently said it intends to offer video, and BellSouth is reportedly testing a video service. Verizon Communications hasn’t yet given any indications about video
Major U.S. phone companies have plans to pump video and TV services into homes via their lines–countering recent moves by cable providers to sell Net-based phone services. [CNET News.com Communications]
It could be 10 years until we see this and by that time I would imagine the TV guys will have long since upgraded to even more capacity…
Chairman Bill Gates writes a letter advocating a combination of law and self-regulation by the industry to stop unwanted e-mail. [CNET News.com Entertainment & Media]
First – here’s a link to the Bill Gates Letter.
While the ADV subject line would be easy to filter for unsolicited emails, it would also completely kill any and all attempts for legit acquisition marketing. The average consumer does not truly understand how their name might be sold or traded through a list broker, nor do they really want to.
If, as a marketer we decide to purchase a list of likely candidate (legally of course), we might now expect to get an extremely low response rate which in effect would kill that aspect of marketing. Customer communications seem easy to maintain with this proposed regulation, but unless someone devises a new way for “customer introduction marketing” a new message from a third party seems to be something that will automatically be filtered to junk.
As someone who gets a great deal of spam – 101 messages since I left the office at 7pm last night, I can certainly appreciate wanting it to go away, and for penalties for those who are blatant abusers. I just don’t see why a solid filter can’t be deployed that can work on a massive level. My use of POPFile has literally gotten 100 of the 101 messages in the last 13 hours. I think that is pretty amazing, and something many others would get a great deal of use from. We just need it installed at the server level, not the user level since it is way to complex a system for mass adoption.
Things are getting extremely competitive with integrated service offerings for telco… Cable vs. DSL is a serious game. Seems the Cable guys have an advantage, since coax can carry more data and it can handle phone. DSL providers can not offer TV – at least not today. Just for comparison… we recently signed up for the AT&T One Rate in NYC which is unlimited local, regional and domestic LD all for $55/mo. Time Warner is rolling out the same package for $40/mo.
AOL’s Time Warner Cable is expected to announce Thursday it has begun selling unlimited local, in-state and domestic long distance telephone service to subscribers.
Time Warner Cable’s “Digital Phone” will cost $40 a month and be available only in the Portland, Maine, area. Time Warner’s trial offering is similar to experiments with telephone services from rival cable providers Comcast Cable Communications and Cablevision Systems.
Looks like a hybrid of MSN and Mac OSX on steroids…
America Online upgrades and releases a new client about once a year. AOL 9.0 is scheduled for release this Fall, and screenshots are beginning to leak to sites like Neowin. Former AOL exec turned blogger Susan Mernit posts this play-by-play:
1) Information management–New emphasis on suitcase and my stuff: Two items on the very top suggest AOL is going to integrate more with desktop tools and information management–a File command on far left, and as little suitcase icon at far right.
2) Downplaying channel content–No more channel bar on Welcome Screen. Does anyone go to all that content buried in the bar? AOLers have long discussed whether the real estate and the clickthrough for the left nave mar are merited–guess the answer is in these 9.0 designs.
3) Continued broadband strip below for those who don’t have broadband client–that hasn’t changed much.
4) AOL Dashboard replacing channel strip–Like the current AOL IM/Mail tool, this object can open and close, collapsing on command. What does it do? Weather, money, radio search and dictionary reference are the highlights.
5) Refreshing tabs and expanded views. Right now the Welcome Screen has little buttons you click to see new current features and news. This new design allows you to use a tab to refresh the view. Tabs suggested a focus on younger audience/premium content/key demographic groups. A tabbed series right down by the promos offers Music Sports Teen People (this is the teen channel now) Customize. Note that all these categories appeal to the 13-25 demographic, and that they are all key categories to offer upsells in the form of premium services. Further, the Customize tab suggests that AOL will be able to go beyond the current capability it has in 8.0 to offer users the chance to select one of 8 screens and allow users to switch some components in and out–adding some of the capabilities of My AOL and My Netscape to the main screen. (Yes, it’s like RSS in a way).
Finally, doesn’t the whole thing look a lot like Citysearch? Lots of commerce and transaction services, plus community?
The telecommunications company is shopping for wireless networking equipment to create public hot spots.
[CNET News.com Communications]
All just a matter time until this is everywhere! Very glad to own a wifi enabled Palm. I just need universal access, which certainly is growing rapidly…
Comcast is apparently watching the Verizon roll out of WiFi service in NYC to see whether they should be quickly following…
The carrier activates 150 hotspots in NYC, part of a plan to bring wireless Internet access to its subscribers throughout the Big Apple and differentiate itself from cable broadband rivals. [internetnews.com: Top News]
Seems to only work for Verizon Online customers according to the Verizon Website, at least for now. I imagine they will want to open this up on a pay basis for others as well…
Got kids? [video] [Adam Curry’s Weblog]
Verizon Communications Inc. plans to offer wireless Internet access in busy sections of cities like New York by installing “WiFi” equipment in its pay phones, a top Verizon executive said Friday.
After delivering a speech at a wireless security conference in New York, Verizon’s vice chairman and president, Lawrence Babbio, was asked whether Verizon would consider turning its pay phones into WiFi “hot spots” that radiate Internet access for a few hundred feet, since the phones’ wiring can facilitate connections to the Internet.
Babbio responded by saying Verizon expects to announce such a plan shortly.
“All of our pay phone people have already told us” that the phones would make good wireless access points, Babbio said. “That will probably be the vehicle we use, probably in Manhattan.”
[via NYT]
The price for calling directory assistance on a cellphone is grossly inflated, but now it looks like AT&T Wireless subscribers will have the option to save a little money by getting phone numbers and address by text messages instead. AT&T Wireless charges $1.25 to call 411, but the fee will be just 50 cents to use TXT-411, as the service is called.
Read
[Gizmodo]
- Technology. Along with its innovative approach to page ranking, Google is a purpose-built hardware company, building all its own servers from components it buys directly for their manufacturers. According to Drummond, Google now operates the world’s largest distributed computer system.
- Business Model Innovation. By perfecting the nature of targeted ads, Google not only has created a highly effective revenue generator, it has produced what it hopes to be a better experience for its users. It is Google’s goal to make their targeted ads at least as relevant and useful to users as the search results themselves.
- Brand. According to Drummond, a European study recently determined Google to be the number one most recognized worldwide brand. Indeed, Google has become a verb (“I can’t wait to get home and Google him”) which poses real challenges to a company seeking to protect the strength of its mark.
- Focus On The User Experience. Product decisions at Google are driven by optimizing for the user experience first and for revenue second. The folks at Google firmly believe that the better the user experience, the more easily money will follow.
I believe that all of these are important factors in developing any great technology company. Powerful customer-focused technology with an eye towards making money — that’s pretty much the formula. Even brand, which can be prohibitively expensive to develop ahead of customer traction, will likely follow product leadership. Google’s success isn’t rocket science, it’s just good old fashion company building. Good for them for the discipline. It’s an excellent model to follow.[VentureBlog]
Is it just my imagination, or does MSN and the MS Passport system not work at all with Safari??? I cannot login regardless of how I try unless I do it through IE. I was successful at getting my.msn to load, but I cannot do anything that requires authentication beyond that first step.
Hard to believe this story is dated 2003, but it seems that “61 percent of the participants said they would be more likely to make online content purchases if there were an easy and secure alternative to the credit card.” I remember people being afraid to do credit card purchases in 1996… why is this still a tough thing for people to do?? Visa, Mastercard and Amex better wake up!
Almost all Internet users have them, but many are afraid to use them online. [internetnews.com: Top News]
A good read… I caught this on my way to work via AvantGo
Business Week: For AOL, Ads Are Still a Minus
A detailed article discussing the reasons behind AOL’s poor ad revenue performance.
Related:
AOL Ad Deals Questioned by SEC More Dismal News For AOL AOL Posts Second Record Loss AOL Drags Down Online Ad Revenue Increases AOL’s Problems Do NOT Spell Industry Doom