Inspire

Predictions for 2007 by Wired and Me

Wired has some food for thought with their predictions for the year 2007 in this post. Below some quotes I totally agree with, except for the remark on the demise of Digg (most people just wanna vote if it is kept really simple) and the idea of Friends 2.0 (too much coordination costs in a time-constrained world).

My 2 cents concerning the predictions for 2007 are:

1. The introduction of the Nokia N95 will be a milestone in the evolution of the mobile Internet, especially for GPS, mobile music (instead of the iPod), Google Maps and mobile social software (MoSoSo). RFID and barcodes will be successful in 2008.\
2. Google Earth will become a more natural way to search in more and more instances relative to text-based search engines.
3. The social, informal economy (a.o. word of mouth) will rise relative to the market economy. This means the relative role of recommendations and other social filters will increase.
4. P2P will drive the entertainment business towards parallel multiple distribution channels for movies. So a new movie is released globally on the same day and after seeing the movie in the theatre you can directly buy the DVD or buy it for your vPod or mobile phone.
5. The Venice Project will be one of the biggest successes of 2007 delivering state of the art P2P TV streams on demand while integrating different Web 2.0 features like chat and ratings.
6. The use of wikis for different commercial activities like campaign concepting and R&D will be on the rise. Consumers and prospects co-develop for advertisers instead of external agencies and/or internal creative teams. Peer review is included.
7. Media will be even more open source than ever including process transparency with its readers.
8. Branding will be more sales driven and ROI based than ever. Google is in the sweatspot for this as it becomes more like a traditional offline media agency delivering ads on radio and print. All marketing will become more performance-based.
9. Social Media Optimization (SMO) besides SEO will be become standard.
10. Remix / mashup culture will be stronger than in 2006. Mashup tools will cultivate this even more. Jumpcut / Yahoo will benefit relative to YouTube.
11. eLearning and Transformation will be key emergent themes in 2007. Peer review driven websites that help users in discovering their identity, talents, motivation etc. will be a major success.
12. Group Buying (dated from 1998) will be reintroduced as a concept and this time be more successful

• "Speaking of, digital video recorders get BitTorrent baked in, bringing internet video to the living room.

• A major newspaper gives up printing on paper to publish exclusively online.

• HD-DVD is the clear winner over Blu-ray in the DVD format wars. Oh yeah, and the PS3 is a bust.

• Digg holds out for a big payday but ends up like Friendster (i.e., no friends).

• Encouraged by the news, the internet becomes home to 5,000 clones of Friends, shot by friends using their friends but unwatched even by their friends.

• The New York Times opens its archives from behind the paid firewall, realizing it's more lucrative to be the internet's paper of record than charging readers for individual stories.

• MySpace splinters as teens head for niche sites. New services that control profiles across multiple social networking sites begin to take off."

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."

IP TV: who delivers and creates the content?

IP TV is analyzed in this article from Business Week Online. IP TV also a linkage to the Long Tail concept (however, how do you define the Long Tail in this respect as the content of Disney is a long tail summary of mostly hits?). I believe a separate initiative like stated below is doomed to fail. It is not in the interest of end users, especially the hardware part. Consumers want a one stop shop for video on demand content in most cases I believe. Collaborative initiatives like MovieLink or CinemaNow might have a better chance of succeeding in my view. Besides this, I think there will be different upcoming TV content producers, from offline media giants to niche cross media publishers to BBC (and other public networks) to even user generated content.

"IPTV's Revolution May Be on Hold. The Internet technology could transform home entertainment. Problem is, what's the point of unlimited channels if studios won't provide content? Aside from a partnership with the Web site CinemaNow to stream video over the Web, Disney has kept its movies to itself. And since 2003, it has used its own video-on-demand network, called Moviebeam. The service works only on special hardware that consumers must rent directly from Disney, in addition to paying a per-movie fee."