Content and services

Blockbuster, Netflix, and Apple

I still remember a conversation I had about a year ago when I told an business acquaintance that Blockbuster was toast, and that it was only going to be a year or two before the company would be gone.

Knowledge Democracy:

Crooks using location information to rob homes

All these location-aware devices we have now with GPS capabilities are turning out to be a boon for crooks. Here is how it works: people go on vacation, take pictures with their location-aware iPhone or Android phone, and upload the picture to Facebook with the exact location conveniently added in. Crooks browse Facebook pages, find someone on vacation a long way from home, and then head over to your house for a leisurely romp through your belongings.

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The death of TV: Part XXIII

Apple has announced a new version of Apple TV. Apple has cut both the price and size of the device; it's now tiny compared to the old version, and costs only $99. The old version of the product was able to store movies and TV shows, but the new version only streams movies and TV, either from online sources or from content stored on a nearby Mac computer.

Knowledge Democracy:

It's always about the bandwidth (or lack of it)

In this article that speculates about an Apple TV upgrade, there is an interesting tidbit that validates what I and others have been saying for a long time: HD content chews up bandwidth:

Knowledge Democracy:

Why Bing is winning

Bing has grabbed almost 13% of the search engine market share in the past year, and the Microsoft search engine appears to steadily getting more users. There are two or three reasons, I think. In my own experience, Bing returns fewer and better results, with less link farm clutter. The interface is better, and Bing is willing to send you other search engines, which suggests a certain confidence in their own results and/or a focus on helping you complete your search rather than stick as many ads as possible in your face.

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Link farming: The perniciousness of Web ads

I just spent a few minutes clicking around trying to find the Web site of a particular business. After four or five attempts to click through on links that I *thought* would go to the actual Web site of the business, I gave up. Every link took me to another link farm or worse, actually just clicked back through to the same page I left. Of course, each time I clicked, another list of Web ads got loaded into the page I landed on, and that's what much of the Web has become--just a snarled mess of link farms.

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It had to happen: Facebook newbie phase is over

Like all popular Internet services, Facebook has enjoyed rapid growth over the past three or four years, as the service added many hundreds of thousands of users a week (or more--millions in some past months). But that growth has finally stalled out, as everyone who wants to be on Facebook already is. Geometric growth is a wonderful thing, but there was always a finite limit to that growth. Even more telling, the amount of activity by registered users has also dropped.

Death of TV, Part XXII: Hulu Plus

Hulu has announced a new subscription and ad-based service called Hulu Plus for $9.99 per month that will provide access to the full season of many "TV" shows. That's a heck of a lot less than the Apple iTunes Store, which sells shows for one or two dollars. Think of Hulu Plus as an alternative to paying for a cable or satellite subscription.

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Is the age of blogs over?

Lately, visiting some of my regular "regular read" blogs, I'm finding not only fewer posts but notes from the bloggers that after five or six years, they are turning the blog off or just posting a lot less. The comments all seem to run in the same direction: "I've said everything I have wanted to say." And regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I am posting a lot less than I was three or four years ago. Part of the change is due the the growth in Design Nine; we're planning and building more networks in more places around the country than we were three or four years ago.

Knowledge Democracy:

More evidence TV is dead

Here is an article that says the median age of traditional TV viewers has moved up to nearly 51 years old. For an industry that covets the 25-44 year old demographic, that has to be bad news. It explains why you see so many laxative,Viagra, and arthritis ads on TV--nothing but creaky and cranky old folks watching.

Knowledge Democracy:

Newspaper sells out iPad ad space

The Australian, a major paper in Australia, has sold out the ad space on its iPad version of the newspaper. At least one paper intends to stay ahead of the news game and make the new medium work for its business. Good for them.

Community news and projects:

Google Music Store kicks Apple iTunes Store in the teeth

Google has announced that the next version of its Android operating system will have something much like the Apple iTunes software and a companion music store.

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Google TV kicks Apple TV in the teeth

Google has announced the fall, 2010 availability of Google TV, which is a set top box but may also be built in to some new TVs. The little video that is embedded in the linked article shows an interface that looks remarkably similar to the interface used by the Apple TV appliance, which is also a set top box. Either Apple nailed the interface design for this kind of device, or Google could not come up with anything better, or both.

Microsoft sides with Apple, supports HTML5 and H.264

Microsoft has announced that for Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), the company has a preference for HTML5 and the H.264 video codec. Flash plug-ins will continue to be supported, but IE9 will only have native support for H.264. This follows on the path blazed by Apple, which decided a while back not support Flash at all on the iPhone and iPod. The controversy has heated up with the release of the iPad, which continues the Apple strategy of no Flash support at all.

Knowledge Democracy:

Will the iPad save the publishing industry?

This article from Cory Doctorow is similar to a couple of other contrarian articles that have come out in the past week--they all complain about the perceived "closed" nature of the iPad and/or say that the iPad is not going to save the publishing business.

Knowledge Democracy:

Apple forces Amazon to change pricing

Earlier this week, I wrote how Apple is forcing publishers to move away from Adobe's buggy Flash plug-in, which is used for multimedia content display. Today, this article comes out about how Apple's pricing for books in the new iPad bookstore has forced Amazon to change its pricing model. Amazon was telling book publishers what they could charge for ebooks using the Kindle distribution system.

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iPad Content Ready to Roll

MacRumors reports that National Public Radio (NPR) and The Wall Street Journal are already getting ready to roll out Web sites designed specifically for the Apple iPad. Expect many more newpapers and magazines to announce iPad versions of their content over the next several months, with the iPad set to ship to buyers in the next 30 days. One of the interesting side effects--Adobe may have lost the Flash war.

Is pay for content doomed?

This article suggests that pay for play is doomed, because no one (according to the data) wants to pay for content.

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What a surprise: Higher prices dampens sales

In a shocking discovery, music publishers have found that the law of supply and demand works. Apple loosened up pricing rules for music on the iTunes Store last year. Record companies immediately raised prices. Buyers immediately bought less music. The record companies are shocked, shocked that buyers don't want to pay more. What could have gone wrong? Higher prices signal less supply, and in turn, demand tends to drop.

Technology News:

Agency model = Revenue share

Apple, as the company has in the past, has begun to upset, er, apple carts. With the announcement of the iPad, Apple also announced a book section in the iTunes Store, with a business model that is exactly the same as the hugely successful music model they use. For both books and music, Apple will collect 30% of the sales price of the item, and the publisher/seller collects 70%. The seller of the item sets the actual price. This is called the "agency model."

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