Youths Are Watching, but Less Often on TV

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/business/media/young-people-are-watching-but-less-often-on-tv.html

Can't say it often enough, there is content or service and there is the delivery method. Many companies confuse this for example:

• Mobile phone company: You are selling a voice call or an internet connection. The fact that I can do this from a mobile device does not change this. It is simply an efficient and convenient way of delivering the service.
• TV channels: Content is king. It really doesn't matter on which screen I consume it, that is the delivery mechanism
• Restaurant: Food is the main product, the decor, service, etc are delivery and experience enhancements but it does not change the core product

The Atlantic online - Instilling FUD in the hearts and minds of online ad viewers

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/a-guide-to-the-digital-advertising-industry-thats-watching-your-every-click/252667/


Professor Joseph Turow writes a compelling article lamenting the use of new targeting technologies and their accuracy. The effects of such advertising may result in unforeseen catastrophic social effects for minorities and the underprivileged.

While the professor agrees that the new technology is accurate and significantly improves it's knowledge about you over time, this is the actual problem!

It seems that if your profile shows that you are predisposed towards sweet snacks, the system, horror of horrors, will actually serve you an ad for..... sweet snacks! This will strengthen your bad habit and lead to a downward spiral.

If you seem to like hip hop and urban, you will not accidentally receive ads for MIT or Harvard thereby reducing your potential vision and reinforcing your antisocial tendencies.

One has no choice but to draw a conclusion that the honorable professor invests in banks who do not do credit checks before giving out loans, companies who purposely market to the wrong audience, companies who do not audit their finances etc.

Why does the advertising industry have to handicap itself and it's clients and deliver one person's idea of social engineering?

There is place for expanding children's horizons it is called school. There are people who watch for kids diets, they are called parents. And, dear professor, there is only one person who can save you from your bad habits and you can find him in the mirror. 

Slate: Why Nobody’s Likely To Put Your Cable Company Out Of Business Soon

Slate Article:  http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/01/11/why_nobody_s_likely_to_put_your_cable_company_out_of_business_soon.html?wp_login_redirect=0

My comment:

Cable companies perform two main functions: Aggregation of content from the producers and delivery of the aggregated content to the consumer.
In the past, separate and dedicated cable networks were built. The barrier to entry was high which limited the amount of players. In addition to cable in the ground you needed set top boxes, engineers, etc.

Up to just a recently, there was no realistic, economic and easy to use alternative. For many years you could watch on a computer but it was no easy task to get a quality image on your TV with a remote control.

Being at CES I see a huge amount of TV’s with easy to use interfaces and may well designed alternative sources of content.

Accessing many channels freely broadcast over the internet and subscribing to Hulu Plus, Netflix and allocating small monthly budget to Amazon, Apple or other internet VoD services should deliver quite a bang for your entertainment buck. You can have the equivalent of 100 channels (Large VoD library plus quite a few linear channels) for around $30/month

There will always be certain content that will cost more money such as sports or some niche channels. Sports are expensive with NFL costing up to $350 per year and MLB at $100. If people move away from cable creating a larger demand for these sports services I expect the cost to go down radically. The simple reason for this is that it is too easy to create pirate feeds of the games and at $350 per year there is way too much motivation for people to try to lower costs even if it may be illegal. This is the same market force which brought you the $.99 single track you want instead of the $15 CD with the additional unneeded 12 songs.

At the end of the day, CableTV operators, Phone companies and OTT providers are in a three way competition that did not exist just a few years ago. This is competition and technological advancement. As always these factors will reduce costs yet may leave a few bodies along the way.

Smart TV’s the New Centers of the Universe

The TV was the central home entertainment device for decades and the reports of it’s death are greatly exaggerated.

I believe that the TV is on it’s way back to reclaiming it’s title with a vengeance.

The new models are making great strides in usability and come standard with an awesome amount of content sources.

Picture quality keeps getting better. Almost time to trade in that old fashioned 1080i HD for a 4K unit. LG had the world’s first 55″ OLED. I took a picture but will not post it because it does not do justice. It is safe to say that it is the best large picture you have ever seen.

LG was showing an integrated ‘OnLive’ type gaming service – ‘Look ma, no console!’. The implications here are huge. If all TV brands can implement this well, the entire console business could be threatened. So could the game publisher business model. As of today, it is similar to the old Hollywood model where you pay quite a bit for a game you will eventually get tired of. The new way is subscription which could severely disrupt the game industry.

Everyone was showing fitness apps allowing you to feel as if you are jogging/cycling through a choice of locations (Hawaii beaches, NY Central Park, etc.)

For the first time I was able to get coherent answers about developer programs for the app stores right on the show floor from every manufacturer!

That being said, it is not yet nirvana as the interfaces and controllers have not fully evolved. it seems that each manufacturer has more than one type of controller, multiple prototypes and no clear vision. The interfaces are all miles ahead of where they were last year but until there can be some type unified approach or at least limit to one style of interface per manufacturer the consumer will remain confused. A visit to your friend’s house should not require a steep learning curve just to flip channels.

LG however, seems to have a simple and intuitive interface which seems to be consistent across all of their non-Google TV’s (More on Google TV later).

Their remote is aimed at the screen to choose an icon and a click to confirm. If you want to search for something, just click on the microphone icon and then speak!

Say ‘Harry Potter’ and you will come up with a few VoD offers, associated broadcast schedules (i.e. for the films, documentaries…) and recommended similar offerings.

The voice recognition worked even in the high-interference show environment.

Next Gen Vaporizers, putting the ‘Consumer’ back into CES

I was looking around all the smaller company consumer products in the North Hall and came across a really nice vaporizer for tobacco and ‘Herbs’

This was right down the aisle from a feminine ‘Personal Massage’ device. I guess Vegas and Amsterdam have a bit in common.

Anyway, if you want a good way to enjoy 420 culture in a convenient and aesthetically pleasing manner just head over to http://www.iolite.com/

Hello world!

2012 CES.

An appropriate time to start a blog about telecoms, media and technology.

Microsoft says they will not return next year and my opinion is not that they have outgrown the show but that the show has outgrown Microsoft.

This year what I am seeing is that the projected takeover of the media business by Microsoft, Apple, etc. is highly overrated. Sure, MS has million Xbox’s worldwide as a distribution network for it’s content but those numbers pale beside the amount of connected TV’s, and other devices with browsers.

Many other activities that used to be associated with computers such as health monitoring, music, art, games, web browsing, etc are moving to tablets and smart phones leaving the computer as more and more of a business tool.

The emasculation of the computer’s (i.e. Microsoft’s) sphere of influence was quite striking and will probably continue.

The computer as the center of the universe is dying but who will be the successor?