sorted by: recent | see :
popular
Content Tagged with Featured + media
Sit Back & Watch: NewTeeVee Station
Over the past 18 months, there has been quite an explosion of video choices on the web. The number of interesting shows keeps going up by the day, making it harder to keep up with the new, cool stuff that makes Must-See-NewTeeVee. I’ve often wondered, what if there was a web service that collated and curated the best of the NewTeeVee shows, finding cool videos before they became a meme, shows that genuinely entertain? In other words, a web app that took the time to scrub out the noise and deliver the best video experience according to select editors. I wanted a place on the web that would do all that but during the lunch hour — the new prime time — and without cutting into people’s daily Facebook fix.
It was a wild idea, I admit, but it seems like the guys in our little company were up for the challenge, and in less than three months have brought it to fruition. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you NewTeeVee Station, available now at station.newteevee.com.
Some facts about NewTeeVee Station:
- Features editorial reviews of online videos written by a team lead by Liz Shannon Miller, who comes to us from Variety and the Daily Reel.
- Has over 100 NTV shows & videos as part of the launch effort alone.
- Sports a database of cast, crew and other details to map out the expanding web video universe.
- Invites readers to become part of the editorial process by adding their own reviews, comments and ratings.
- Boasts eight channels of the most memorable comedy, commercials, drama, music, news & talk, personalities, reality and zeitgeist picks.
- Showcases what’s hot at that moment, right on the front page.
- Can be subscribed to via the Station RSS feed or be bundled with NewTeeVee Feed.
It’s still a work in progress, and will be for a time, as we plan to tweak and improve it each day for the foreseeable future. I didn’t want to place the “beta” tag on it because I feel that the web keeps evolving, and web applications keep growing, just like all of us — and we never put a beta after our names. Om 2.0, however, is OK if you’ve had a heart attack and change your lifestyle and habits. Sorry for that personal digression, but it’s an important backdrop to this new site.
In my opinion, the most unfair part of the job of CEO/founder is taking credit for the work that everyone else puts into making your dreams and crazy ideas become real. So I wanted to set the record straight: This new effort is a testament to the intelligence and excellence of the GigaOM team. Apart from coming up with a harebrained idea back before my heart attack and some occasional Jobs-ian rants, this is the work of the following people:
On the editorial side, Liz Gannes, Liz Miller and Chris Albrecht worked with our tech team of Chancey Matthews and Kyle Johnson. They were all shepherded by Joey Wan, who rose to the challenge and became the project manager for NewTeeVee Station, in addition to helping us out on Structure 08. Mule Design came up with the design to fit with the original NewTeeVee look, and the folks at VodPod worked hard to help us build the viewing widget. Our editors, Carolyn Pritchard and Celeste LeCompte, helped add spit and polish to the editorial content.
Liz on NewTeeVee writes: “I haven’t meant to neglect NewTeeVee lately, I swear. But I have a very good excuse (and a newfound regard for product managers and PR people!)” Yes, it has been a great learning process. Thanks everyone, you made us all proud. When we all gather together soon — we will pop the bubbly! Now let’s watch some NewTeeVee.
media
Guide
station
stuff
Featured
Technology-News
newteevee
How Can the Music Labels Save Themselves?
Fred Wilson recently pointed me to David Hyman’s manifesto on how the music labels can save themselves. It’s well worth a read, but David’s point is basically that they should:
- Drop their penny-per-play streaming-on-demand rates by 90 percent, to one-tenth of a penny
- Link streamed songs to a commerce opportunity, such as buying the MP3 from a store such as Amazon
- Upsell a premium subscription
I’m not sure that this will fully replace the foregone revenues from a decline in physical CD sales, but it does make a lot of sense. I’ve been privately telling my friends at the labels that their licensing pricing strategy has been flawed, notably that it’s skewed towards short-term financial rewards. I’ve also been telling them that they’ve priced out a large part of the market, which is one reason that so far it’s made more business sense for even well-meaning startups to beg forgiveness instead of asking permission.
In other words, the labels were able to ram the penny-per-play rate down the throats of major portals and distributors such as Clear Channel, AOL and Yahoo. These large companies were financially able to do the deals, and most likely looked at the licensing of the music as an investment or a loss leader to acquire users cheaply. A penny-per-play equals a $10 CPM. At that rate it is very hard to break even, let alone sustain a viable business (don’t forget to factor in other COGS like bandwidth, sales commissions, serving costs and songwriting royalties, which I don’t think are covered by the label’s rate). Factor in assumptions on CPMs, ad frequency and sell-through, and it’s hard to make the curves cross.
I’m not sure what the optimal rate should be — David’s suggested rate may well be it, but I don’t have the data. Another approach would be for the labels to get some equity participation from companies wishing to leverage lower rates, which would allow them to capture greater upside for the additional “risk” they’d be taking, whilst charging market rates to companies that can afford it.
Regardless, to use a tax metaphor, instead of having one tax rate aimed at the super-rich — which simply encourages tax avoidance in the lower strata — the goal should be to broaden the tax “base.” I know that the labels are already experimenting with this but, like David says, they need to act fast.
Based out of London, Raghav “Rags” Gupta is VP of International Partnerships at Brightcove, where he has worked since ‘05, prior to which he was a senior executive at Live365. His blog can be found at www.ragsgupta.com. The views expressed here are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of any company with which he is affiliated.
Companies Can Make Money With Widget Ads
Selling advertising on entertainment-focused widgets such as Scrabulous or Zombies is about as easy as spinning straw into gold, yet there are plenty of people trying. And there are ways of generating revenue through specially focused widgets designed solely to sell rather than toss sheep. Brand and comparison advertising done through ad-focused widgets is emerging as a viable way of using the ubiquitous applications. Widgets’ interactive features, their ability to be virally distributed and potentially be placed on a target’s own page makes the creations appealing to advertisers.
Where that leaves startups such as RockYou and Slide, which develop entertainment widgets, and the ad networks that cater to those applications, is still unclear. I’m waiting to see if enough users buy into ads shown on their fun widgets or click through enough transactional widgets to make a viable business. However, existing online ad networks and possibly a few new widget creation and advertising firms are already proving that widgets aren’t just fun and games.
WidgetBucks is one such widget-creation/ad network company making money with this approach. CEO and Chairman Matt Hulett says the company sees click-through rates of 0.5 percent to 1 percent with its ads, which resemble interactive, dynamic banner ads. The company expects to pull in $10 million in sales this year. The company’s approach, however, has come with its share of drama, as some publishers have complained about WidgetBucks’ rates and practices.
When it comes to making his widgets a success for advertisers, Hulett based his design on the theory that people using widgets for fun aren’t expecting to be engaged in commerce, but people in other venues (such as those reading a product blog, for example) might welcome widget advertising that shows the latest deals on a device.
“It’s kind of like pre-roll advertising,” Hulett said. “It’s really hard when the context is around having fun. People do not like monetization in front of those platforms and the CPMs are awful.”
A similar approach to using a widget as a more interactive ad rather than entertainment is Toyota’s new campaign for its Scion vehicles, which launched on Tuesday. This is an example of widgets as brand advertisement, which can be spread virally around the Internet. The idea is that consumers use the widgets on social media sites as an identification of their aspirations, much like one might wear a Nike shirt.
Adrian Si, an interactive marketing manager for Scion, says the firm is using widgets as an extension of the rich media banner ads it runs through Interpolls. Si is hoping to achieve the same 1 percent to 2 percent click-through rate Scion sees using Interpolls’ rich media banners. That translates to a 4 percent to 5 percent engagement rate. Scion will measure both click-throughs as well as the number of times the widget is installed on someone’s site.
“This could be more valuable [than banner ads],” says Si. “Obviously, it shows they have a lot of interest in the brand. On their MySpace pages they can put a whole bunch of stuff, so it must have meaning to them. It’s also an opportunity to get our brand in front of them every day.”
Listening to these two companies I realized that widgets aren’t a new business, but rather a new form of advertising and entertainment. Those focused on advertising are making money; the question is, will the ones focused on entertainment do so, too?
The Operators vs. the Media Brands
Chetan Sharma is co-author of upcoming “Mobile Advertising” (John Wiley) and “Mobile Broadband” (IEEE Press). He is an adviser to several operators and media brands around the world.
Over the last three months, there has been significant discussion around the notion of “open access,” with Apple promising to release its developer kit for the iPhone; Sprint Nextel launching its WiMAX business, XOHM; Verizon Wireless saying it will open up its network and platform; Google’s efforts around Android and a possible gPhone; and the 700 MHz auction. The two massive industries of communications and media/online are clearly at loggerheads. How this battle shapes up over the course of the next few months will define how you and I will consume media, entertainment and information.
Media companies and mobile operators think about customers differently. Operators are focused on subscriber acquisitions, while media companies are fanatic about audience acquisitions. Operators think in terms of adding a few hundred thousand subscribers a month — media companies, of millions. In the Telco 2.0 world, where service providers aspire to become media and entertainment brands, shouldn’t operators be thinking like media companies? Shouldn’t they be more focused on audience acquisition strategies — selling their goods beyond the confines of today’s existing barriers?
If we look at the strategic canvas of the mobile data industry, it’s clear that operators currently have a huge advantage over media brands. Mobile operators’ advantage in the current landscape comes from their superior reach, as well as the capability they have to segment and profile users. Their current influence over the ecosystem is a magnitude ahead of media brands. However, in other areas, such as user experience, content, and the ability to be quick to market — media brands have a stronger strategic footing, and they will use it to close the gap in the other areas.
Too much ink has been wasted on the equation of being a dumb pipe. Dumb does not imply little or no value. For operators, nothing is more troubling than the insinuation that they will be reduced to bit pipes, becoming utilitarians tasked with keeping the streets clean while the media companies zoom past them in their Ferraris. Yet operators need to realize their unique value propositions, come to terms with both what they are great at and not, and structure their monetization strategies accordingly. The growth of the nascent mobile advertising industry is largely dependent on it.
While it is conceivable that some operators can become content and mobile advertising powerhouses, the evidence points us elsewhere. Operators and media companies sit at the exact opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of cultural and media savviness. Mobile operators are very engineering focused and extremely conservative in their approach to the critical operational aspects of running a cellular network. Media companies, on the other hand, come up with the most creative ways to express a brand message in a landscape that would burst the brains of the very brightest network operators with all of its consumer nuances and related myriad creative intricacies.
To be successful over the long term, operators need to focus on the unique elements that only they can provide — such as location, presence, user profiles and platforms for applications; as well as device and network APIs — and build business models around abstracting this information so that the ecosystem can utilize them to enhance user experience and usage. Such an approach will enhance their competitiveness in the media ecosystem, keep the usage and ARPU levels up, and get more entrepreneurs and users involved in moving the industry to its next milestone.
Such an ecosystem will also empower entrepreneurs to keep pushing the boundaries of technical and business innovations to make mobile media and advertising a sustainable, vibrant and scalable industry at a much faster pace — and will help deliver on the promise of “open access” better than any rules in the 700 MHz auction. This shift in mindset (and subsequent execution of the resulting strategy) will have a direct impact on any viable mobile content and advertising strategy. Advertisers look for an audience, precise targeting, and measurement. If operators can help deilver that, then their media strategy will flourish, but if three years down the road, media brands have five times the audience…well you know what happens next.
Big Social News Sites Need to Outsmart the Subverters
Getting on the home page of popular social news sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon is a marketer’s dream. Top-ranked topics get recommended by many visitors. Recommendations from people we trust are the No. 1 driver of web traffic, according to a recent Deloitte study on Internet use. There’s no better way to get people to visit your home page than to get highly ranked on these sites.
For many Internet readers, the big social news sites are the start of their daily browse. These sites get the most submissions, comments, recommendations and feedback. As a result, they’re a great source of novel news. Put another way, if the wisdom of the crowds works, then a bigger crowd is wiser. But the more big sites grow, the more of a target they become.
Big social news sites need to win the war against trickery if they want to stay relevant. If not, they’ll pave the way for niche sites with better recommendations.
Social news sites let members vote for or against stories, so that popular topics make their way to the top. Of course, promoters go to great lengths to try and get visibility, often against the intended use of the site. Sometimes they hope to build a user base (although the spike in visitors that they provide may not be sustainable.) Other times, they want to promote a particular point of view or political opinion. And often, they’re simply hoping for a quick win from advertising revenue.
Reddit, Digg and others have had to create rules to reward good submissions and discourage bad ones. People who submit a story that becomes popular get credit for doing so, and their subsequent recommendations count for more (what Reddit calls a “karma system.”) There are also ways to flag offensive content. This is supposed to create a self-policing system in which interesting, popular content rises to the top.
Promoters are always trying to subvert these systems so their content makes the front page. For example, users can run scripts in Greasemonkey, a Firefox extension, to automatically up-vote stories about a favored political candidate. Or they can vote down legitimate stories, ensuring their latest submissions make it to the top.
But it doesn’t just stop there. Companies like user/submitter and Subvert and Profit pay Internet users to vote up their stories. Some bloggers claim to be the victims of “Digg blackmail,” whereby they are faced with threats that others will report them as abusive spammers (costing them their hard-won popularity) unless they pay up. And users with strong reputations are in constant demand, because their votes count for more — so, of course, people have offered to pay the influencers directly. Digg removed its top-ranked poster list in early 2007, but the Wall Street Journal was still able to pinpoint top submitters.
The social news sites have fought back with adjustments to their algorithms and new rules for acceptable use, and the result has been a full-fledged arms race with malicious promoters.
“With the deluge of spam submissions we get daily, we’ve constantly been tweaking and improving our technology to help curb spam with the assistance of the reddit community,” said Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian. He credits the site’s unique page design, in which stories rise and fall as their popularity changes, with helping to control spam. Similarly, in a CNET story from December of 2006, Digg founder Jay Adelson confirmed that the site uses “technical information that only we could know” to suppress spammers and suspicious users. But as Wired writer Annalee Newitz proved, that information isn’t always enough.
The increasingly draconian measures taken in this arms race can mean that legitimate recommendations don’t get the attention they deserve. Early down-voting of a story on Reddit can make it disappear (a bug the folks at Reddit say is being fixed.) Ohanian acknowledges that there’s no substitute for the human touch. “I can address the occasional machine gaffe and fix problems genuine users have fairly quickly,” he said.
If the big social news sites can’t win the war, smaller, more topical niche sites may be able to thrive alongside the big guys. To be sure, one of the reasons big sites like Digg and Reddit have to deal with this problem is because they can drive the most traffic. This makes them big, seductive targets for malicious promoters. Niche sites simply aren’t as likely to be attacked because there’s less to be gained by doing so.
But it isn’t just size that makes the job of detecting trickery harder for big sites.
Digg and Reddit cover a broad range of topics, from politics to technology to world news. At the same time, they know relatively little about their members, when compared with niche sites. Smaller sites are more intimate with their members — think the corner store vs. Wal-Mart. It’s easier to spot a stranger, and to watch them closely.
Consider, for example, Boardgamegeek. This site knows a lot more about its members, who are willing to volunteer information over time about which games they own and how often they’ve played each one. Similarly, thesixtyone can learn about its members’ music collections and preferences by having them share their music collections and recommend music over time.
Smaller, more topical social news sites may be able to build better “weapons” to fight abusers than a generic site like Digg or Reddit, because they know more about their members. They’re also less likely to wrongly block a recommendation from a trusted member.
Reddit has plans to address this. “Reddit is hoping to release something very soon that will provide a solution for all the Redditors we have emailing us with suggestions for new Reddit communities they’d like to see,” Ohanian told me. “Something as basic as sharing and discussing interesting links is still happening all over the web on forums, Usenet, chat etc. — we just think the experience would be best on a Reddit.”
What this suggests is that social news sites will reach a natural equilibrium. There will be the Diggs of the world, which cover a wide range of topics that will offer somewhat more dubious results to those users unwilling to reveal things about themselves. And there will be specialized, mid-sized sites that provide more relevant recommendations on a particular topic in return for more disclosure from their users.
EchoStar Now DISH Network — Spins Off SlingBox, Set-Top Biz
EchoStar, the satellite broadcasting company, is finally changing its name to DISH Network, according to a filing with the SEC. Why the change? EchoStar wants its name to truly reflect its true business. It is also planning to spin off some of its businesses, and that spin-off will be called EchoStar Holding Co. (EHC), a move we had mused about earlier. Charlie Ergen is going to be chairman and CEO of both companies. EHC had sales of over a billion dollars and a profit of about $32 million for first six months of 2007, on a pro forma basis.
EHC will primarily have two lines of business:
Set-top boxes: EchoStar has a hardware business that makes set-top boxes that are sold primarily to DISH Network, but also to some international customers. In 2006, this division shipped about nine million set-top boxes. In October, EchoStar acquired Sling Media for about $380 million, and Sling Media is going to be part of EHC.
We believe our separation from ECC may enhance our opportunities to sell set-top boxes to a broader group of multi-channel video distributors. Historically, certain multi-channel video distributors have perceived us as a competitor due to our affiliation with ECC.
In other words, don’t be surprised if the company starts selling boxes to cable operators and other DBS companies.
Fixed Satellite Services: EchoStar owns (or leases) nine satellites and seven digital broadcast centers. It also has a fiber-optic network that has points of presence in 150 cities. This could mean that the company is going to start leasing capacity to other players, not just EchoStar.
The spin-off certainly sets up interesting scenarios: For instance, DISH can now be easily gobbled up by AT&T, though their deal is supposedly on the rocks. Another option is that DISH could aggressively bid on 700 MHz wireless spectrum, win some spectrum, and then offer some sort of a new broadband-enabled satellite TV service. A lot to think about, and of course a reason to make some calls.
Hands-On Review: Nokia N95 US 3G Version
A few months ago when I got my hands on the first version of Nokia N95, my initial impression about that phone was less than enthusiastic. A 5-megapixel camera, remarkably solid music playback capabilities, and the ability to make phone calls over WiFi seemingly struck a chord with everyone but me.
Battery life, lack of U.S. 3G (HSPDA-High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) higher speeds for wireless Internet access, lack of Exchange support left me cold, though those shortcomings and a steep $750 dollar sticker price didn’t stop N95 from being a brisk seller, especially in Europe.
Well, Nokia fans in the U.S. can rejoice - the new N95 is capable of handling U.S. 3G connections, the kind currently being offered by AT&T, is finally making its debut stateside, and you are going to be impressed by the subtle tweaks that come with this new device.
You might remember that I got a glimpse of the new phone on The GigaOM Show, when Blake Krikorian, CEO of Sling Media showed up with what Nokia describes as “multimedia computer.”
I have had the opportunity to play around with an early prototype version of the new 3G-capable N95 for a couple of days, and so far, it has been an experience to remember. It seems someone at Nokia sat down, read through my long list of nagging issues with the N95, and fixed them.
The single biggest improvement is the battery life of the power-hungry device. It also seems to be faster and has more on board memory. The camera on the back of the phone is recessed but that doesn’t seem to have impacted the photo and video quality. Still, I am going to miss the shutter protecting the Carl Zeiss lens.
Did I Say 3G: What I found most impressive about the new N95 was that I could use the phone as a modem and connect to AT&T’s 3G network. The download speed was a nifty 400 kilobits per second when the device was connected over Bluetooth to my MacBook Pro.
The ability to use N95 as a modem was a good enough compensation for the disappointment I felt, when I realized that I couldn’t sync the new version of the device with Apple Address Book and iCal via the iSync module. I guess the next update from Apple should fix this issue. (No such problems when I plugged in the phone to a ThinkPad T61, where the Nokia PC Suite worked flawlessly even over Windows Vista.)
After this point forward, the phone just proved to be a pleasure, though it has been hard to adjust to the 12-key triple-tap-and-type data entry methodology after using the iPhone. I was impressed with the Windows Live search application that comes bundled with the phone, and the tons of games that have been great time-wasters.
VoIP: The phone comes bundled with Gizmo VoIP client and it took less than 30 seconds to set it up, though I could not make it work over the 3G connection for voice calls, and ended up using the WiFi connection instead. The same problems occurred with the Truphone client, though finding WiFi networks is a breeze, thanks to a built-in Wi-Fi finder.
Multimedia Madness: The new devices come with easy access links to Nokia’s new music and gaming portals, though the services were not live during the time I had the phone.
Nokia has also made it easy to watch YouTube videos on the device: the speedy connections actually make that fun when compared to YouTube videos on the iPhone. A video center shortcut on the menu gives access to more video such as Reuters business news, though I had trouble making those particular videos work. You can also add other content such as RocketBoom.
Playing back videos and music has seen marginal improvements. For instance, videos have less jitter and seem more stable, I guess because of a more powerful processor.
Maps Maps & Maps: Nokia bundles its Map application with this device, and over a 3G network it is actually useful and fast. I really like the GPS with 2D/3D views.
There were some nagging issues such as Nokia’s Mail4Exchange didn’t work.
Verdict: Overall, this is definitely a much-needed improvement over the previous (European) version of the N95. If iPhone isn’t your cup of tea, and you’ve got about $750 to spare, then this one is worthy of your time.
Next up is twisting Blake’s arm and getting him to give me a copy of the Sling Player: now that would be something. Meanwhile, I am going to settle in for the night and watch Casino Royale on the tiny screen.
MTV+Real+Verizon Vs. Apple & iTunes
Update#2: The digital music joint venture aimed at Apple (AAPL) and unveiled earlier today by RealNetworks (RNWK) and Viacom’s (VIA) MTV is 51-percent-owned by the digital media company, notes paidContent.org’s Rafat Ali, who dug up Rhapsody’s related 8-K filing. MTV’s stake will be 49 percent.
Update: It is official! Real Networks, MTV and Verizon Wireless are teaming up to form Rhapsody America, a joint venture that will be headed up by Michael Bloom, former general manager of MTV Urge. The company will have offices in San Francisco, New York, and Seattle. On-air integration for the new service will begin next week and Rhapsody will also be integrated into the fabric of MTV’s marquee event, the Video Music Awards airing live from Las Vegas on September 9th, 2007. Verizon will push Rhapsody via its stores.
Van Toffler, President of MTV Networks Music said: “The new Rhapsody will have the marketing power of MTV, VH1 and CMT behind it.”
John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Verizon, added, “Together, our three companies will provide a new, unbeatable digital music experience that will give every consumer a way to get music quickly and easily – whether sitting in front of a computer screen or on-the-go with a mobile device.”
Older post, below the fold: MTV Networks, a division of Viacom (VIA) is merging its Urge music service with Rhapsody, a music service offered by Real Networks (RNWK), the Seattle-based software and media company, according to The Wall Street Journal. The two companies were set to make the announcement tomorrow, but WSJ broke the story. It is not clear what the final entity would look like, but it is clearly a joint venture of sorts.
Verizon and Vodafone have has signed on to be mobile distributors of this new effort, which is going to be led by Michael Bloom, currently CEO of MTV Urge. An MTV-branded, Real-powered service on Verizon and Vodafone could act as a counterweight to Apple’s iPhone-Cingular juggernaut, but I wouldn’t count on it, for MTV has a history of blown chances. Meanwhile, there has been some talk of Vodafone getting the rights for Apple’s iPhone in Europe.
MTV had established Urge in partnership with Microsoft Corp., but let it whither away mostly because Microsoft launched its own Zune device and service. (It got Zun.k.ed!) In recent years, MTV has started airing reality television shows and sitcoms, and has lost some of its all-music-all-the-time cachet and audience.
The music loving audience has moved on to newer online communities such as Last.fm, which is now owned by CBS, a company that was spun out of Viacom. Last.fm could provide a big boost to this “mega-attempt” to take on Apple and its iTunes service.
Nevertheless, thus far any such attempts have not really had any material impact on Apple. Still, the deal could prove to be a boost for Real, which can finally get some airtime for its Rhapsody service. Real has been pushing a “Real-everywhere” strategy, and has already embedded its service into devices such as Nokia’s N95 and Sonos’ media player.
Also check out my interview with Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser on The GigaOM Show.
MTV+Real+Verizon Vs Apple & iTunes
MTV Networks, a division of Viacom (VIA) is merging its Urge music service with Rhapsody, a music service offered by Real Networks (RNWK), the Seattle-based software and media company, according to The Wall Street Journal. The two companies were set to make the announcement tomorrow, but WSJ broke the story. It is not clear what the final entity would look like, but it is clearly a joint venture of sorts.
Verizon and Vodafone have has signed on to be mobile distributors of this new effort, which is going to be led by Michael Bloom, currently CEO of MTV Urge. An MTV-branded, Real-powered service on Verizon and Vodafone could act as a counterweight to Apple’s iPhone-Cingular juggernaut, but I wouldn’t count on it, for MTV has a history of blown chances. Meanwhile, there has been some talk of Vodafone getting the rights for Apple’s iPhone in Europe.
MTV had established Urge in partnership with Microsoft Corp., but let it whither away mostly because Microsoft launched its own Zune device and service. (It got Zun.k.ed!) In recent years, MTV has started airing reality television shows and sitcoms, and has lost some of its all-music-all-the-time cachet and audience.
The music loving audience has moved on to newer online communities such as Last.fm, which is now owned by CBS, a company that was spun out of Viacom. Last.fm could provide a big boost to this “mega-attempt” to take on Apple and its iTunes service.
Nevertheless, thus far any such attempts have not really had any material impact on Apple. Still, the deal could prove to be a boost for Real, which can finally get some airtime for its Rhapsody service. Real has been pushing a “Real-everywhere” strategy, and has already embedded its service into devices such as Nokia’s N95 and Sonos’ media player.
Also check out my interview with Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser on The GigaOM Show.
Sling Media hits its puck, take that MLB
If you are a baseball fanatic like yours truly, then you can only watch the masterful pitching of Japanese pitcher Dice-K with a sense of sheer amazement, regardless of the fact that he toils for the much loathed Red Sox (at least in my one person household.) And yet, the major league hitters are slowly figuring him out, and denying him wins.
There might be a parallel (admittedly an obtuse one) between the pitcher and Sling Media, the place shifting start-up that I have tracked from the day of its inception. Just when you think fate is throwing them a “screw-ball,” Blake and his boys pull a proverbial rabbit out of the hat.
Take their recent run-in with Major League Baseball, which alleged that Sling shifting violated its contract with cable and satellite providers, and called their service illegal. HBO feels that way as well. (I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with watching your TV being streamed to your computer across the planet.)
And while the luddites bicker over the legality of the service maybe up for debate, SlingMedia is likely to announce an arrangement with a major sports league, most likely National Hockey League, that would allow users to Clip+Sling some of their broadcasts.
The Clip+Sling technology allows viewers to share short segments of programming, live or recorded, with other Slingbox customers as well as the audience at-large. The Sling spokesperson was not available for comment.
A deal with NHL, could open doors for agreements with other sports leagues and content owners, allowing them to capture the viral buzz generated through sharing of short video clips, and build communities around those web-clips.
As an aside, I have often wondered if content owners are failing to realize the fact that clips on YouTube are the 21st century version of cooler-talk. Instead of just talking about say, last night’s game (Red Sox vs Oakland)where Dice-K pitched so beautifully (and lost,) how about sharing a moment with coworkers or fellow fans.
5 Questions for Joost CEO Mike Volpi
Mike Volpi was rumored to be the new CEO of Joost for quite a while, and the company confirmed the news today. We had a chance to catch up with Volpi, one of the rising stars at Cisco Systems, and talked to him about his decision, and his plans for Joost, a P2P video company started by Skype co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström that recently raised $45 million in funding from investors such as Sequoia Capital.
According to a report in The New York Times, Joost now has half-a-million subscribers, and over 100 employees. Here are excerpts from an interview conducted earlier today.
OM: Mike, you were one of the rising stars at Cisco. Why leave, and why decide on Joost?
Mike Volpi: Routers are great, but can’t do it forever and I wanted to get on the ground floor of something unique. I never thought myself as the router guy, and had broader interests. I come from the infrastructure side but I hate to pigeonhole myself.
I had a lot of things come my way, but Joost interested me the most. I have known Niklas and Janus for a while, and was excited about what they were doing with Joost. I think great companies are built when the market opportunity comes together with a great team. That is Joost.
OM: Why do you think the time is right for Joost?
MV: I think there are three things that have come together. Content owners have realized what happened to the music industry and have embraced the Internet. I think that combined with broadband, and the P2P technology platform.
OM: Joost isn’t the only online video player in the running – and there are many options out there. So why should we think Joost will win.
MV: Joost is not YouTube and Joost is not Apple iTunes. What Joost is - a service that delivers high quality ad-supported long form produced video content in a secure manner using a cost-effective delivery platform. Bringing these three pieces (long form video content, advertising and delivery platform) together is going to be hard and not everyone is going to be able to do it. No one has it packaged together like Joost.
OM: Is lack of upstream bandwidth and the current debate around network neutrality of concern to you? After all some of your offerings will compete with the TV offerings of cable and phone (IPTV) companies.
MV: The way our system is designed I don’t think upstream bandwidth is going to be a problem. It is designed along the lines of BitTorrent.
On the issue of network neutrality, we have a totally legitimate service and the carriers shouldn’t have a reason to block us. I don’t think the regulatory environment (in US and elsewhere) will allow for the blocking of competitors to the carriers. (*)
OM: Is there a chance we will see Joost on AppleTV?
MV: We would love to put Joost on the Apple TV platform. We know we can make it run on any operating system.
Thanks Mike!
[* Ed. Note: We have experienced severe quality loss so we do think upstream is going to be an issue going forward.]
Last.fm, CBS’ $280 million hedge for its radio biz?
Why did CBS decide to spend $280 million to buy Last.fm, a UK-based music community that faces many challengers, and other risks such as the rapidly transforming Internet streaming royalty structure? A vexing question, it has been on my mind ever since I read the news in the Los Angeles Times.
I have been in touch with some folks who know the media business quite well, and they believe that amongst other things Last.fm could be CBS’s hedge for its terrestrial radio operations. CBS, thanks to the Tiffany Network, is widely viewed as a television company. Many overlook the fact that it owns 144 radio stations in 50 markets, a business that brought in about $397 million in revenues in the first quarter of 2007, and an operating income of $156 million.
However, radio sales saw a decline of 9% (maybe because CBS sold off 39 radio stations) and operating income declined 4% when compared to the first quarter 2006. The terrestrial radio business has been feeling the heat, losing the attention battle to iPods and the Internet based music services.
The situation isn’t going to get any better, as music continues to be available everywhere. A whole generation is growing up and turning a deaf ear to the traditional radio. Last.fm, however, is moving in the opposite direction – growing, mostly because of its social features.
It is a community of like-minded (or same taste) music lovers that continues to grow. To distort a cliché, let a billion radio stations boom. CBS could start making money with the obvious business of selling music, but the real thrill would be if CBS takes this (to use another cliché) wisdom of crowds, and turned it into a tool for programming its on-the-air play lists. (Rags outlined this theme in his post, Can social tools save plain ole radio?) (Also, Internet is the Deejay.)
If people-curated news sites like Digg can find traction, why not a people-powered radio. A Last.fm Top 20? If Les Moonves and his able lieutenant Quincy Smith play their cards right, Last.fm could become the underpinning for CBS Radio sometime in the future.
Of course all that is in the future, once the glow of the deal has turned into a shade of reality. CBS will have to work hard to not disturb the core DNA of Last.fm. There are already some rumblings, and some Last.fm community members equate CBS’ presence to cat among pigeons.
Smith, who is leading CBS’ charge into interactive waters, told me that they have no plans to muck around with Last.fm or its community, emphasizing in his ever-so-colorful manner that CBS wants to do the reverse – take Last.fm’s DNA and graft it onto the big brother.
“If the ‘Man’ buys a social network, key is to keep our influence away from it.” As long as he and his bosses remember that, the hedge for CBS Radio could actually pay-off in the long run.