Inspire

Lawrence Lessig, Vint Cerf and Jonathan Zittrain on Authors@Google on the Future of the Internet

A great historic, knowledgeable, funny and original overview of digital media in general and how they thrive. Now and in the future. Open/generative or closed systems ? In case you are interested in the evolution of the internet, this video is for you. But also in case you want to protect your privacy or if you are a developer for Facebook. Based on the book Future of the Internet by Jonathan Zittrain. Highly recommended!

Bob Garfield on Digital Media, Ad Agencies, Advertisers and the Accelerating Meltdown of Old Media

This post by Bob Garfield on AdAge is recommended for all traditional media owners, marketers, advertisers and ad agencies. It is quite a read but it shows that the current meltdown of traditional media due to rise of digital media is accellerating. It deepens the thoughts of Joseph Jaffe, Doc Searls and David Weinberger, Chris Anderson, Henry Jenkins, John Battelle, Kevin Kelly, Don Tapscott and puts them in the light of actual financial and commercial facts and trends in the advertising space.

Marketing, branding and communications will become more about

• Values (practice what you preach)
• Open Source Marketing (the mass innovates for you)
• Proof, sharing evidence and information (instead of propaganda)
• Permission-based, opt-in, pull conversations (instead of push broadcast messages)
• Contextual, behavioral relevancy
• Social networks/viral effects (instead of market mechanisms)
• Platforms (instead of campaigns)
• Innovation and Excellence (instead of promotion)
• Coalitions (instead of fully homegrown solutions)

""People are interested in what they are interested in," he says. "The magical part of social networking like Ning is the people [specific category] advertisers are interested in are magically coming together." And they're trackable all the way down to the individual user, so why waste anyone's time with what co-founder Gina Bianchini calls "undifferentiated aspirational messages"? As for how you serve the information once you've gotten the audience's attention, the digital tools for doing so get ever more impressive.

One particular eye-opener, from Vancouver, Canada, is VideoClix, a hypervideo application that lets the user roll over any part of the image -- a car in the background, for instance -- and click for information about make, model and so on. A second click directs the user to the manufacturer, retailer or whatever. It's like VH1's old "Pop-Up Video" show, only the user alone controls what to pop up. Thus, it exploits the online third dimension, beyond audio and video: info-depth. "It's a layer of information," says founder Babak Maghfourian, "that people will demand.""

Current TV: the way forward for TV

Yes....Generation Content is moving forward, this time on TV. For all my readers, this might be an interesting avenue for consumption and/or production. Can't wait to see it happen....

"We're rethinking the way TV is produced, programmed, and presented, so it actually makes sense to an audience that's accustomed to choice, control, and collaboration in everything else they do. So, we're creating a network in short form. Whenever you tune in to Current, you'll see something amusing, inspiring or interesting. And then, three minutes later, you'll see something new. It'll be a video iPod stocked with a stream of short segments and set to shuffle.

We aim to connect to every facet of real life, so the rotation will include Current Soul, Current Gigs, Current Fashion, Current Lies, Current Tech, and lots more. These segments will be anchored each hour by the Google Current: an up-to-the-second zeitgeist, a glimpse into what people around the world are searching for and talking about right now. Finally, there's the Current Studio: our participatory production program, anchored online and open to anyone. The Studio is a cornerstone of this network, and your opportunity to produce, program, and get the word out about our network. If you jump in and get creative, you will see the results on TV."

Cable, phone, wireless: triple play battles and service providers

Nice quotes from the Wall Street Journal on the current triple play battle between phone companies, optical fiber service providers and cable operators. This is a great article as it pumps up different new key insights (like the Akimbo example). And its insights might even be relevant for wireless service providers with their walled garden approach and upcoming triple play offering for mobile. The only thing that is really missing is the pivotal role of home networking technologies like WiFi to differentiate triple play offerings. Overall, at this point I would bet my money on the phone companies as they have a more entrepreneurial mindset and offer more creative bundles to consumers relative to cable operators, especially with wireless operators.

"But there is one thing many consumers want that the industry is in no hurry to deliver: an easy way to gain Web access from their TVs. While gadget freaks can already do this, most cable operators would prefer that the Internet and TV remain two separate experiences -- and revenue streams -- for everyone else. For programmers, total integration would open the door wider to file swapping and piracy. For cable operators, it raises the specter of viewers going directly to content providers for shows and films, bypassing the middleman. But the Internet is coming to TV whether cable companies like it or not. Phone giants like SBC and Verizon plan to deliver their signals using an Internet technology known as IP TV. While cable companies broadcast all their channels at once to the TV, blocking those that aren't paid for, with IP TV, SBC and Verizon will deliver only programs that viewers request. That essentially makes a limitless amount of content available, just as there's no cap on the number of Web sites.

But because of the breadth of the Internet, IP TV presents intriguing ways for phone companies to distinguish themselves from cable companies. Individuals are putting up more and more unconventional content on the Web using such vehicles as video blogs. Phone companies could easily make this content available on TV. While most of it will be pretty boring, with the right search engine, it could turn into the ultimate reality show.

Start-up businesses like Akimbo Systems are already planning ways that wannabe producers can upload their videos and even share in the revenue when TV viewers buy the content. "It will do what eBay has done for retailing," boasts Josh Goldman, Akimbo's chief executive.

Will cable operators respond to this threat with a comparable service? If history is a guide, the industry will probably wait to see how IP TV works out for the Bells. Most cable operators are notorious for being technology followers rather than leaders. The most notable advances of the past decade, such as digital channels and digital video recorders, were pioneered by satellite TV businesses.

Certainly there was little sign at the Moscone Center that cable operators are worried about phone companies leapfrogging them in the TV business. Most cable companies plan to switch to IP TV technology eventually because it's a more efficient form of transmission and will combine more easily with their Web-based phone and broadband services. But clearly they're in no rush.

In the cable industry's defense, the show was packed with the broad array of new services that companies are rushing to market, including phone, high-definition TV and video-on-demand. The industry's strategy reflects its strength as the dominant provider of TV and high-speed Internet hookups, well positioned to muscle into the phone business much faster than the phone companies can expand into TV. Executives are confident subscribers won't defect as long as companies keep loading them up with new services.

"The danger, of course, is that IP TV gives phone companies the tools to innovate better. A few speakers did predict that rapid technological advances would create unprecedented challenges for cable companies. But not surprisingly, many of these warnings came from executives at companies that work with both camps."

CEBIT 2005: Mobile TV update 4

Interesting update from the CEBIT event on mobile TV. I agree totally on the interactivity part of the story. However, TiVo-like recording functionality on a mobile phone seems like a niche market to me. Why? Because most end users will in my view prefer to record on their TV PVR instead of their mobile PVR. I believe live TV over DVB-H or DMB might be more interesting on mobile phones instead of recorded TV considering the immediacy USP of mobile phones (see my previous posts on mobile TV and video), exceptions being situations in which the mobile user won't be able to view the TV content on their TV for a long time due to travelling issues and in which the nature of the TV content is compelling enough to see it quickly after the live event. That is, TV content with high social-emotional value.

"The DMB and DVB-H technologies are more compelling than streams over UMTS for the time being, since they offer users the ability to harness the broadcasts by recording them and playing them back on their own schedule. The key to mobile video won't be just broadcasting live TV on its own, it will be offering users personal media. While TV on a mobile remains a novel concept, there will come a point when users won't be satisfied with watching anything just because it's available -- they'll want more control over what they're presented with. That's some functionality they'll likely have no problem paying for."

Voice-enabled browsers for PCs, mobiles and STBs

"Web browser developer Opera Software wants to help you tell your TV to check what's on, thanks to the launch of a voice-enabled TV guide. The Oslo, Norway, company's Electronic Program Guide (EPG) is based on IBM's ViaVoice implementation of the XHTML+Voice (X+V) multimodal markup language specification currently wending its way through the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) standards process. The company plans to roll out a voice-enabled version of its desktop PC Web browser in late March or early April 2005. Officials said the technology is suited to any number of digital home entertainment components, such as DVD players and digital video recorders; it also focuses on the benefits voice technology would have on the cable or satellite set-top boxes.  Now, instead of wading through programming on hundreds of channels by remote, users can tell the set-top box, "find me a documentary," or "find G-rated fare" in order to display the relevant shows."

Nice article on voice browsing on different end user devices. I wonder about the effectiveness and usability of voice-enabled PC and mobile browsers due to the more open and complex nature of the fixed and mobile Web and the limited appeal of TV for these devices at this point. I can imagine the benefits of this innovation within set-top-boxes or PVRs considering its more closed and thus searchable nature as well as the TV as a logical device for watching TV. Of course, this is all changing at this moment due to the rise of different home networking solutions (from PC to TV and from mobile to TV). I also wonder how long it will take before FireFox and Microsoft Internet Explorer will offer similar functionality. Opera seems to be effectively targeting high growth end user devices like mobile phones and PVRs/STBs.

Voice browsing seems like a nice-to-have innovation and not a need-to-have due to the limited time gains relative to data driven search queries. Additionally, voice enabled applications in my view seem be limited in use and market potential due the social nature of some end user devices in particular circumstances.