Connected Home
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Michael Robertson, the founder of MP3.com, SIPphone and a whole slew of other companies is at it again - giving away free storage (1 GB) as part of Oboe Free, a music storage locker. You can upload your music to this locker and get unlimited high-quality music streaming. (Maybe we could put together a list where you can get free storage, tips?)
Oboe Free can store up to 1000 songs. Providing much more than simple online storage, Oboe Free is also accessible for listening and syncing through some Internet-capable devices and services like TiVo. One could listen to a lot of music on Nokia 770 while sitting in a park in Mountain View over GoogleFi.
The Oboe Locker comes with Oboe Sync software, enabling easy syncing of music from a user’s computer to their Locker. The Oboe Locker is compatible with most music file formats including .mp3, .wma (Windows Media), .aac (iTunes) and .ogg. In addition to Oboe Free, MP3tunes also offers two other versions of the Oboe Locker with more storage and features designed for music fans: Oboe Premium features unlimited music storage and accommodates much larger size song files for just $39.95 per year. Oboe Basic features twice the storage capacity of Oboe Free for only $19.95 per year.
Michael’s thoughts on his blog.
Written by Om Malik on August 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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AOL announced this morning it had signed deals with most of the major studios to sell movies for $9.99 to $19.99. The deal is significant because of its breadth, flexibility, and cheapness. AOL will offer 20th Century Fox, NBC Universal, Sony, and Warner Bros. Movies can be transferred to other PCs and compatible portable devices. Fox and Sony television content will also be available.
This is a big score for AOL; the competition doesn’t have it nearly as good. Studio-supported Movielink and CinemaNow do have a lot of variety but new movies will set you back at least $20. They’ve announced plans to allow DVD burning but only with select studios. Guba just made a splash by offering videos for $9.99 on the day they come out on DVD and half that for the old stuff. But it only has deals with Warner Bros. and Sony. Amazon and Apple haven’t even crossed the starting line. Here’s hoping they cut pricing deals that are more in the Guba range than the AOL one.
In March, AOL launched streaming video of old TV series, a deal that seemed like a breakthrough at the time. Nowadays who doesn’t sell studio content online? AOL had previously had a partnership with Movielink; it’s not clear what has happened to that.
Written by Liz Gannes on August 24th, 2006 with no comments.
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Sony snapped up Grouper. Viacom bought Atom Films, and before that iFilm. Looks like the old media giants are on the prowl and looking to gobble up online video starts. Business Week has come up with a short list, and so have we. But we want to put the question to you the readers in this poll. If you pick “other” let us know which company do you think will get snapped up next.
Written by Om Malik on August 23rd, 2006 with no comments.
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DivX, the video company well known for its coding and compression technology, quietly launched a YouTube-style online video sharing community, Stage6, a few weeks ago. While there seems to be no end to the video-sharing sites out there, DivX’s site already has a pretty impressive set of high quality videos. Check out the difference between that well known “Dancing” video on Stage6 vs YouTube’s (sorry to make you see those jerky moves twice.)
The company is already touting a “hot 6″ videos section on its site, highlighting the most popular videos. Users rate each others videos with ‘mod points’ and develop ‘Karma’ based on how much they participate in the community. More Karma can bring more privileges. Company FAQ says Stage6 will give video makers a cut of some of the revenues that videos receive. Site “channels,” also already feature professional content made by video game channel G4, music videos and Diggnation clips.
We could only watch videos by downloading the DivX media player, and video makers can only upload content with DivX-encoded files — both of which can be a barrier to wide adoption. Right now all the content is offered for free, but the company says they are working on a download-to-own service. A major boost for Stage6 could come from the 1,800 consumer electronics models (mostly DVD players) that use DivX’s technology, and DivX says Stage6 content can be played across those devices.
Stage6 could be just another way to ride the buzz of video sharing sites like YouTube. DivX registered for an IPO in May that could raise as much as $135 million, so perhaps this is part of the overall plan to make a public splash. In its S1, the company says it needs to strengthen and maintain its brand. Though, we’re not sure Stage6 is the way to do it.
Other video sharing sites are also targeting the Internet video quality gap. We got a pitch from a company called Dovetail.tv today, which says it is launching in a few weeks and is aiming for the high-quality Internet video market. Instant Media is looking to tap similar users too. Companies working on peer to peer architecture could also have an edge in splitting up bandwidth.
Maybe DivX can use its future IPO funds to help boost Stage6 beyond a me-too site for quality videos. We plan to talk to company execs next week, and we’ll bring you more details then.
Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on August 23rd, 2006 with no comments.
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More P-P2P goodness coming your way. After Zapr, it is time for AllPeers to make its debut, and it should be anytime now, according to an entry on the company blog. It has been one of the most talked about products, and it is a Firefox plugin which allows you to transfer big files easily. I am looking forward to playing with it. Michael Copeland has a great profile on the company that is based in Oxford, England, and is backed by Index Ventures, the same folks who funded Skype. AllPeers development team is in Prague.
Written by Om Malik on August 23rd, 2006 with no comments.
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Dell’s foray into consumer electronics hasn’t exactly turned out the way the Texas PC giant had expected. There were few who would publicly say that the company would not really make it as a CE company. One of them was former Merrill Lynch analyst Steve Milunovich. “We believe the Dell’s music devices will continue to have limited success,” he had said back in October 2004. Honest talk, given that Dell CEO was dissing Apple and iPod, and most believed that Dell could take a big chunk of the Mp3 player market. Like many others, Dell has learnt the hard way - no point messing with King Jobs. Dell today conceded defeat and has decided to get out of the MP3 player business entirely.
Written by Om Malik on August 23rd, 2006 with no comments.
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Another day, and another online video deal! This time it involves an aging media-entertainment giant, Sony, and a tiny California start-up, Grouper.
Sony is ponying up $65 million for Grouper, once a leader in the P2P sharing space, but now a straggler lagging behind some of the newer rivals. The deal, while good news for Grouper team, indicates a larger malady that has gripped Sony: confusion.
The deal is between Sony Pictures, but the management teams are talking about devices, cameras and in house distribution. Sony Pictures does legal content, Grouper – well it has a bit of “anything goes†culture. Given Sony’s past track record when it comes to “synergies†this buy is mysterious at best.
Sony has bigger problems: it is an electronics giant which hasn’t had a hit in years; it doesn’t have a single must have device on the market; the future of its savior in recent times, the PlayStation, is still questionable, and its core CE business is getting commoditized. Without great devices, Sony is just another fading brand, living off its glory days. Music and Movie businesses are going nowhere fast.
What it needs is complete revitalization, a focus and a plan – maybe Grouper is start of that, but I am not holding my breath.
(Read the press release, that says it all.)
More Online Video Buyouts Coming?
Big Media is panicking and buying
Couple more, and the music stops
Eem, where can I buy online videos?
Written by Om Malik on August 23rd, 2006 with no comments.
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YouTube today introduced a new campaign that casts a “pro” as one of its users. Paris Hilton, famous for being famous, has a pop album. YouTube is giving her a “brand channel,” where Hilton appears in a choppy video welcoming visitors and asking them to leave a comment. It’s like real-time reality television; when I visited, she had logged on two minutes before. Hilton comes off as strikingly similar to the 20-something amateur YouTube ladies who primp and pontificate in front of their webcams (in some cases, for the benefit of large fanbases).
As part of the campaign, YouTube is selling ads for Fox’s Prison Break and sharing some of that revenue with Hilton’s label, Warner. Selling ads on ads — strong work! But instead of dealing with making money from amateur material (and potentially sharing ad dollars with the amateur creators), YouTube seems to be creating a new kind of amateur. Since Paris Hilton already blurs that line, by choosing her YouTube seems to reassure us it’s in on the joke. Who next — Puck from Real World or Survivor’s Richard Hatch?
Everyone wants to know if YouTube can profit on its potential. This is an interesting tweak, but it’s not going to bring the revenue pouring in. As many are pointing out, the campaign doesn’t apply to the vast majority of YouTube’s videos. Still, it’s good to see YouTube try before cashing out. A similar new initiative, an ad for the movie Pulse that users can rate, share, and comment on just like any other YouTube content, has been viewed nearly a million times in four days, according to Reuters.
YouTube, it seems, is “charging [Fox and other advertisers] based on the number of users regardless of whether the consumers actually watch the videos,” according to the Wall Street Journal. I assume this means the number of visitors to a “brand channel’s” page, or the home page when the brand is featured, not YouTube’s total visitors (11 million per week and counting)…but it’s not clear. The WSJ also reports YouTube wants to turn this into an AdSense-like program, brokering video ads for other sites. That’s a good business, but Google would clearly have the edge on syndicated video ads if push came to shove.
Getting this many users for a free service was a mix of smarts and luck. Working out how to make money off them? That’s tough.
Written by Liz Gannes on August 22nd, 2006 with no comments.
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Cisco Systems, the San Jose-based router giant has bought Pleasanton, Calif-based Arroyo Video Solutions, a four-year-old video on demand software company for about $92 million in cash. Given that Cisco rarely parts with cash and often uses stock for acquisitions, it seems that the company is placing high strategic value on the deal. Signing that big check must be easy, given that Arroyo has the attention of some of the major cable operators such as Cablevision.
The move is yet another part of Cisco’s bid to turn itself into a consumer centric company. As you might remember, it has spent over $6 billion and acquired companies like Linksys, KISS Technology and Scientific Atlanta. It has also made investments in consumer video offerings such as Akimbo and Cinema Now.
Arroyo, is the latest and perhaps the most crucial piece of the puzzle. Since Arroyo’s products allow carriers - wireless, wireline and cable operators - to deliver video on demand to any platform: television, computer of mobile phone, Cisco now has acquired three must-have features of any future video offering.
These features are allowing consumers to access web video on all “three screens,” time shift the traditional video experience, but most importantly, place shift the video content to the device of their choice, regardless of location. (Read: Place Shifting is everywhere.) Arroyo is said to be a market leader in the controversial but interesting technology called the networked personal video recorder, which is slowly winning over the cable operators and content owners.
The Arroyo acquisition seems to be a counter move to Microsoft’s IPTV effort which promises seamless video experience across computers, set-top boxes and mobile phones. (As long as they all use Microsoft OS.) Motorola has its own version of place shifting and time shifting technologies, and is Cisco’s archrival in the cable operator markets.
When we posed this question to Paul Bosco, Cisco Vice President responsible for video and cable initiatives, he said, “We don’t necessarily as a competitive move, but more really it is about broader adoption of the media, devices, and video on those machines.” He explained that carriers are also looking at the user generated content quite closely, and are making moves to bring the open content to the traditional living room environment. He was quick to point out that Arroyo also has products for TelcoTV markets. Sure, but that’s like saying Hummer 3 is small and fuel efficient, compared to H1.
The biggest winners of this deal are Arroyo investors - Matrix Partners, Doll Capital Management, and Foundation Capital, and the venture arms of Comcast and Time Warner. Arroyo raised about $25 million in venture funding.
More on Cisco’s consumer strategy later!
Written by Om Malik on August 22nd, 2006 with no comments.
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Mention peer to peer and file sharing, and you can almost hear the collective groan of the entertainment executive businesses. They are quick to press the speed dial button for the $1000-an-hour law firms, who in turn work with groups such as RIAA and MPAA to sue single mothers, and kids. Well, little do they realize why people are resorting to file sharing, and that after a brief initial pain, it actually turns out to be an opportunity.
David Choi and Arturo Perez, two academics make that point in a research paper they just published and point out that online piracy is a precursor to widescreen adoption of new technologies and emergence of new markets.
For example, they have made a significant impact in the evolution of file-transferring technology, which has created breakthroughs in information distribution for both illegal and legal uses. Second, the piracy communities have been the source of invaluable market insight to the business world. Third, online pirates have contributed to new market creation.
As argument, they offer Napster as an example. Many feel that Napster was all about free music, but Choi and Perez argue that it helped establish not only the music download business, it also pointed out that most consumers wanted to buy single songs not albums. Apple’s iTunes store capitalized on that and became the pasha of digital music. Similarly, the BitTorrent and Kazaa are leading to the emergence of what we like to call the personal P2P apps.
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Written by Om Malik on August 21st, 2006 with no comments.
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Zapr, a Sydney, Australia-based peer to peer file transfer company is about to launch and open its service to beta customers. The company is one of the latest to join a new breed of online file transfer services, we have labeled personal P2P applications.
Pando, Perenety, Peer Factor, and Wired Reach are some example of such services. I have come across a few other companies since my previous post - YouSendIT and Civil Netizen. I am also looking forward to learning more about AllPeers, a Firefox extension that will allow users to send and receive files.
Zapr, which only works with Windows XP, is as easy to use as an IM client, and mimics that user experience. Interestingly, it doesn’t make the recipient of the files download a client. You can try it for yourself. Michael Liubinskas, Zapr’s head of marketing and business development was in town last week and gave us a demo, which seemed simple enough and worked flawlessly over a Starbucks/T-Mobile WiFi connection.
Pando, seems to be the market leader in this space and has a million installs so far. That service works on Windows and Mac OS X, and has plugins that make big file transfers possible from within the Yahoo IM and Microsoft Outlook clients. We have been using it for a while now to send big PDFs and image files.
Written by Om Malik on August 21st, 2006 with no comments.
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Last week, I speculated as to why Rupert Murdoch would have a difficult time acquiring YouTube. I also suggested that, with a rumored asking price of $1 billion, NBC Universal was the most likely contender to buy YouTube. But my thoughts were based mostly on reasons having to do with financial/capital structural issues. With this piece, allow me add some additional perspective on the matter… but this time, from a more strategic point of view. In my view, the company that would benefit most from the prospect of buying and owning YouTube is Steve Jobs’ Apple Computer.
As most know, with the exception of iTunes, Apple has been a laggard when it comes to the web. But buying YouTube, Steve Jobs could leapfrog to the top of the heap. After all, he would end up with immediate presence within the ranks of the top 50 web properties (one that’s still growing at a rapid clip).
YouTube would also, for the first time, give Apple a platform to tap into the highly-coveted stream of online ad revenues, particularly within the fast-growth, high-CPM video ad segment. And by owning a leading platform for user-created content, distribution, and social networking, Jobs could fill in nearly all of Apple’s strategic holes (vs. web competitors) in one fell swoop.
But to assess the real (near-term, material) value of such a deal for Apple, let’s go back to iTunes. As we all know by now, the success of iTunes is rooted in its tight integration with the iPod, both in terms of its end-to-end user experience as well as its “razor-and-blade” business model. On the latter, Steve Jobs proved his brilliance by sacrificing digital music profits and making it up with sales of his high-margin iPods. The result has been market dominance… 75% market share. But sales are slowing, and he needs a new catalyst.
Enter YouTube. The online video phenom can be to the video iPod what iTunes was to the audio iPod. It’s not difficult to imagine mass consumers, especially tweens, downloading their playlists of YouTube “video snacks†and viewing them on the go with their video iPods.
And if YouTube is able to secure music videos from the record labels (offering them for free to consumers), not to mention any deals they may have with Hollywood (e.g. NBC), the promotional synergy/loop-back with iTunes (for both music and TV/film content) could be significant. In short, the brilliance behind the “razor-and-blade†business model of iTunes-and-iPod could be extended to YouTube-and-Video iPod. It also provides a roadmap for the much-speculated Apple cell phone and the WiFi-enabled iPod… both would greatly facilitate video uploading and sharing.
Jobs’ ego would benefit as well (not that he needs it). Just like Rupert Murdoch (via the “MySpace Effect”), such a deal would catapult Steve Jobs into the rarified stratosphere of being a “social media mogul.” Speaking of Murdoch & MySpace, a combination of YouTube and video iPod could also go a long way in staving off the increasing threat of MySpace Video.
So with a market cap of nearly $60 billion, should Apple go after YouTube?
Robert Young is a serial entrepreneur who played a major role in the invention & commercialization of the world’s first consumer ISP, Internet advertising (pay-per-click ads), free email, and digital media superdistribution.
Written by Robert Young on August 21st, 2006 with no comments.
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With Apple and Amazon about to throw their hat in the ring, existing players are looking to fight back with price cuts and content promos that will suck the profits out of the legal video download business.
The first salvo in what will be a brutal price war is being fired by San Francisco-based Guba, which is going to announce that users will be able to download the movies for $9.99 on the very day the movie, is released on DVD. In addition, they are going to sell catalog movie titles for $4.99 and television shows for 49 cents an episode. Movies can be rented for 99 cents.
These prices are going to put pressure on existing download services, Cinema Now and Movie Link, which despite a big head start have been puttering along. The competition is only increasing. Amazon and Apple are next up, joining the ranks of existing players. Microsoft has its own plans, both as an infrastructure provider and also as a competitor with its Zune line of devices. (Also, Playing into Apple’s hands.)
The mad dash to the video market is predictable. In-Stat, a market research company predicts that the global market for “online content services is expected to expand by a factor of 10, growing from about 13 million households during 2005 to more than 131 million households by 2010.”
The big driver of online video content is easy broadband access and faster downloads. In-Stat predicts that households with broadband will more than double between 2005 and 2010 globally, growing from about 194 million in 2005 to more than 413 million by 2010. Of the current broadband homes, nearly 12.8% are getting content from online content aggregators the research firm predicts.
ABI Research analyst Michael Wolf predicts that networked devices, which decrease the reliance on personal computers, will boost the demand for Internet-delivered video even more. He predicts that the percentage of Internet-delivered video viewed on a portable device will go from just 3% today to 16% by 2011.
Such forecasts are one of the reasons why everyone wants a piece of the online video pie. Which makes me wonder if we could a painful shake up in a few months. Frankly, I am not at all surprised that Guba is getting aggressive, and using pricing to get a big enough slice of the market. It would not be surprising if others respond to Guba’s moves with their own “promotional offers.”
Written by Om Malik on August 20th, 2006 with no comments.
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Erick Schonfeld over at Business 2.0 Blog has been busy digging up the details on Amazon’s new UnBox movie download service. The details are on the Business 2.0 Blog. Amazon is apparently using Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, Digital Rights Management (DRM) and related technologies.
Kevin Kelleher, a frequent contributor to Business 2.0 was able to actually download the Unbox software when it was up briefly on the Web. Although he wasn’t able to try it out because Amazon’s server was not responding, he was able to copy the software’s terms of service.
Other fun facts about the Amazon UnBox:
- Rented videos can only be viewed on one device (like an authorized laptop)
- Conusmers will also be able to burn purchased videos onto a DVD, but it looks like it will only play on newer DRM-compliant DVD players.
- The service will only be available in the U.S at launch.
- You must download the videos within 24 hours of purchasing them.
- The Unbox Video Service will allow consumers to both rent or buy digital videos.
Since Apple is yet to announce its movie download service, it is hard to say the impact of this announcement on them. However it puts folks over at competitive services such as Movie Link and Cinema Now in a bit of a pickle. Don’t you think?
Written by Om Malik on August 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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YouTube is working to build a library of every music video ever created, according to Reuters. The content, which YouTube co-founder and CTO Steve Chen said he hopes to acquire in the next six to 18 months, would be offered for free.
This being YouTube, any talk of a business model was obfuscated. But surprisingly, two major labels–Warner and EMI–went on record saying they were working with YouTube on the project.
“We’re obviously interested in legitimate use scenarios and trying to broaden those, and our focus with YouTube is how to be partners while protecting our artists and ensuring they get paid,” said Michael Nash, senior vice-president of digital and business development at Warner Music.
Everyone is trying to get a piece of the YouTube hype these days. comScore issued a press release yesterday saying YouTube had broken into its top 50 sites, with 16 million unique visitors in July (but behind Yahoo Video and the surging MySpace Videos, as Matt points out). And of course, yesterday’s six-hour YouTube site outage did not go unnoticed.
The Reuters article did not discuss amateur music videos a la the Chinese Backstreet Boys, which in my opinion are some of the most entertaining stuff online. It’s unclear if the labels are going to play the copyright card on the lip-synch issue. I looked into it a while back and every lawyer I talked to said fair use would not apply here. YouTube and the RIAA refused to comment about allegations they were issuing take-down notices for the videos. According to the WSJ, Universal was lobbying other labels against letting the lip-synching videos go free.
Google, meanwhile, told me the labels have indicated they are fine with lip-synchers–until of course they started to make money off their Internet celebrity. Hunter Walk, product manager for Google Video, said “The record companies are interested in finding out where this stuff is going and how they can catch up to it.”
What would be really cool is if these YouTube-music label talks end up with some kind of allowance for music video mashups and the like. Or maybe Google will be the one to make that breakthrough. Google has an opportunity to push YouTube hard on video, and it seems to be finally flexing its power. When Google put video on its homepage last week, Hitwise recorded a single-day doubling in traffic to Google Video.
Written by Liz Gannes on August 16th, 2006 with no comments.
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Not since the PSP has Sony launched a consumer electronics device that falls into the must-try category. However, MyLo (my life online), a WiFi based handheld that is part-Nokia 770, part Sidekick, part OQO and part SkypePhone wrapped in a PSP-like body might change all that.
You cannot argue with the release of this device. Research shows that WiFi usage inside homes is only going to increase. There will be 160 million broadband enabled, networked homes by 2010, according to The Diffusion Group. This trend offers opportunities to sell devices specially designed for this type of environment.
Nokia was the first one to realize that when they released Nokia 770. Sony’s PSP only offered limited features, but lacked the true portability. Any communicator-type device that wants to be successful in the US, needs to have a keyboard and with MyLo, Sony has done precisely that.
The new device which is optimized for post PSTN communications - IM, email and Skype is targeting the MySpace set, that would rather thumb than talk on the phone. It can playback music, and has 1GB flash-based storage, and can also take additional memory stick slots. It truly does leverage the wireless network, and the feature which could be a killer in the long run is ad-hoc music sharing.
Providing networking possibilities without a wireless network, the mylo personal communicator detects when it comes into the presence of other mylo units. With the ad-hoc application, you can share play lists and stream music between mylo communicators one at a time.
The device has “presence” management features and allows you to track your social network of upto 90 people from a screen called “What’s up.” It also has a built in browser which makes sending emails via web interfaces easy. Now it won’t be Sony if they didn’t trip up a little - the device supports only 802.11b networks and is expensive, about $350. It will be available next month.
Full review at Engadget.
Written by Om Malik on August 8th, 2006 with no comments.
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Netgear more known for its wireless routers and switches seems to be getting pretty serious about the digital home. They just bought SkipJam, a six year old software start-up based in Port Chester, NY for $9 million in cash. That got them five engineers. SkipJam had come up with a product called iMedia, that network enabled most A/V components, without requiring a PC. It could connect to PC and access digital content, but it is more of a A/V type product.
And now for the bad news! Remember that Skype phone, that got everyone so hot and heavy - well that has been delayed. “The Skype phone which has seen numerous delays has been pushed out again and because of the delays, NETGEAR has now lost its exclusive partnership with Skype,” writes Mark Sue, analyst with RBC Capital Markets in a note to his clients.
Written by Om Malik on July 28th, 2006 with no comments.
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For consumer electronics industry, digital home is the next big pot of gold, a pot so big that it has everyone from Apple (AAPL) to Microsoft (MSFT) to Intel (INTC) licking their chops. But it is Linux could emerge as one of the biggest winners in this bonanza.
The demand for networked CE devices is going to increase in tandem with the availability of faster in-home networks that can shunt data at blazingly fast speeds. Technologies such as MOCA, HPNA 2.0 and 802.11n will allow us to move content from one device to another.
As a result of that, we should expect the demand for the Home Media Servers and Entertainment Hubs could grow to be a $44 billion business in 2011, according to ABI Research. (Well, don’t pay much attention to the mega-billion number, but instead focus on the trends!) ABI says that the digital media server market is made up of four main categories: PCs, set-top boxes, consumer electronics devices such as gaming consoles or PVRs, and Network Attached Storage (NAS) hardware.
“Linux as embedded OS should take up a substantial part of the set-top box and CE market, but not the PC,” says Michael Wolf, principal analyst with ABI and author of the study. Who wants their PC to be their media center? Okay, at least not us. The logic is simple – the other two players – Apple and Microsoft will have their own proprietary systems. Apple will not share them with anyone else, of course! Microsoft would as long as you play ball with their DRM system or some other lock-in. (And they are not to be taken lightly.)
This leaves CE makers, and start-ups with one option – Linux. The embedded Linux has already been adapted and widely deployed in everything from Sharp PDAs to Motorola Mobile Phones to set-top boxes. Many of the newer digital music systems such as Sonos are powered by the little Penguin. TiVo, for example is based on a version of Linux. So is DirecTV’s set-top box! Moxi, is another set-top box maker that uses Linux. AT&T HomeZone is powered by Linux as well.
Scores of other start-ups are experimenting with Linux-based home entertainment systems, music players and digital video recorders. IntAct, a spinout from set-top box maker, Amino has just started selling a Linux-based software stack that runs on any kind of chip, and can also run Opera browser. And there are many more similar packages out there, or under development.
The signs are pointing to a Linux-powered living room. Do you agree? (Take our poll.)
Written by Om Malik on July 26th, 2006 with no comments.
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Where there smoke there does seem to be fire, at least in the case of Microsoft. The impending launch of a line of portable media players and/or game consoles - the Argo, or Zune, or whatever its going to be called - seems to be a foregone conclusion at this point, if reports in the Seattle Times and Joystiq are to be believed.
I think it will happen. The rumors have been flying over the past year, and the bottom line is it just makes too much sense. While their Portable Media Center 2.0 software and products from partners are much less clunky that the first generation, the company is still breathing Apple’s fumes and will continue to do so with the PC model they’ve retrofitted onto the digital media player market.
I wrote a research brief in February of this year saying basically the same thing, suggesting that Microsoft needed to launch an Xbox branded media and game player of their own. Now I don’t claim that my article was the reason they’ve gone down this route, because it was clear to me, and a few others (and most likely Microsoft), that they needed to do something if they had any hope of establishing themselves in portable digital media.
But I also think there’s a bigger story here. Some of it has to do potentially with gaming and the Xbox 360 – Microsoft is the only of the big three console makers without a handheld gaming console – but its also the fact they want to dominate the living room of the future, and right now they’re best shot is not necessarily their Windows monopoly and the upcoming Vista, but instead lies with the Xbox.
Now there are a bunch of Sony fanboys who take umbrage with any suggestion that Sony won’t repeat its 100 million console dominance of the PS2. Well I’m here to say, face facts guys, there is no way Sony’s going to sell another 100 million. They’ll be the leader worldwide once again, but it’ll be by a much smaller margin. Both Microsoft and Nintendo have a much stronger story this time around, and Sony continues to stumble, first with delays, then with high prices ($600 for a game console?), and now with lack of details over their online gaming strategy.
Back to Microsoft. So why is Microsoft’s Xbox franchise, or at least parts of it, the company’s best bet to take on Apple, Sony, and others leveraging their own respective brands as beachheads into the digital living room? First, despite some early production hiccups and a box that does run fairly hot and loud, the 360 is the best thing by far that Microsoft has done in the consumer space, bar none. There’s a reason Xbox folks like J Allard keep getting promoted in the company: they’ve given the company a real shot at leading North American and European market share for this generation (forget Japan – Microsoft would probably be better off to just give up now), and did fairly well the first go around.
Secondly and related, Xbox Live is the currently the most evolved online gaming service for consoles, and while Sony and Nintendo are planning massive upgrades this go around to their online gaming offerings, Microsoft has a four year head start. And, more to the point, it’s not just about gaming. Microsoft plans to expand the service cross platform with Live Anywhere, allowing it to reach the PC as well as mobile devices, including the Argo/Zune.
Even as Microsoft works with MTV to develop its URGE online music portal, its not unlikely to think that Live Anywhere will serve as the underlying platform for purchases of digital media. The company is already offering microtransactions through Live to the 360 for levels and maps, for casual games, and even for viewing HD movie trailers. Why not use extend it to a portable device?
So that brings me back to Apple and the digital home. Apple has grand plans for the living room as well, and there’s no doubt they’ll leverage iPod/iTunes as well as the growing popularity of their Intel based line of iMacs and Mac Minis. The Front Row application is their media hub software, and with support for Bonjour media networking standards, an iMac or Mini transforms into a media server. Microsoft sees this, sees the potency of combining the iPod, Apple’s newly charged line of Macs, and iTunes.
Seeing this, they know they can’t afford to rely on OEM partners in the portable space anymore.
So they’ve decided to throw the PC model out the window, alienate partners like iRiver and Creative and whoever else has standardized on their PMC software, and risk another hundred plus million dollars in building this player in a market where the ship has already sailed, at least in the digital music side of things.
Why? Because they know Apple’s model of tying a seamless experience of hardware, software and services has proven to be a winning combination in this market, and more importantly, they can’t afford to let Apple have unrivaled dominance in an area that will be crucial in the connected home of the future. They’re going to use the best thing they’ve got going for them in the consumer space, the Xbox, and even though they may not even brand the player with Xbox (though I think they’d be wise to do so), they’ll certainly tie it to the Xbox 360 through Wi-Fi and will likely use the Xbox Live Marketplace as a commerce engine for content.
Will they succeed? Too early to tell, but if the Argo or Zune or whatever it is ships by Christmas, it’ll be certainly be fun watching them try.
One other thing of note: At WinHec 2006, Microsoft announced a new web services initiative tied to their home networking technology suite for Vista, called Windows Rally. Pieces of this suite go beyond what is in the new Universal Plug and Play 2.0 specs announced this week by the Universal Plug and Play Forum.
By pushing a more proprietary approach to web services for connected devices beyond the standard they helped create (Microsoft was the driving force behind UPnP 1.0) means Microsoft may truly be moving towards an Apple-ization strategy. Windows Rally can be expected to be a key underlying component of the Zune.
Michael Wolf covers digital media, home networking and gaming for ABI Research. He can be reached at wolf@abiresearch.com
Written by Michael Wolf on July 16th, 2006 with no comments.
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SageTV, a Oakbrook Terrace , IL-based personal entertainment software company will announce SageTV Media Center for Linux V5 with place shifting features and Media Extender support later this week, sources say.
The four-year-old SageTV recently introduced place shifting features to the Windows version of its software back in April 2006. Sage is in the process of writing a Mac version as well, though it is not expected to be released till later this summer or early fall. The Mac place-shifting features will follow.
Place shifting allows users to take their current television feed and view it over an Internet connection in remote locations, such as hotel rooms. Place shifting was first introduced to the market by Sling Media of San Mateo, California. Sling has done a great job of evangelizing its technical breakthroughs, and has even earned the ire of the cable and television crowd. Still, place shifting is not likely to enter the mainstream for another 24 months. It would still be a faster adoption that personal video recording technologies popularized by TiVo.
In recent conversations with cable and set-top box industries, we have learnt that most if not all have plans to bring place shifting into their future offerings, sooner, if they can work out all the legal issues. SageTV, which has primarily sold its software and media extender products to consumers is also working on OEM version of its products, targeting the set-top box makers.
Written by Om Malik on July 11th, 2006 with no comments.
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I got a chance to check out Metalink’s wireless chip technology a few months ago, as the company played a crystal-clear high definition movie and ran it over three blazing-fast wirelessly-connected TV’s. If the demo was the norm, it was as easy and fast as wireless networking should be. Today Chinese consumer electronics-maker Haier said it tested its high-def TV’s that are using Metalink’s new WiFi chip set–N-compliant standard–for wireless networking.
But the technology won’t likely land in your living room for a good long while, if it makes it that far. Metalink is an Israeli fabless chip company, that has plans to work with other consumer electronics makers to embedded really fast WiFi in products like set-top boxes, DVRs and residential gateways. While the technology is the latest wireless breakthrough for the digital home, the company isn’t making any money off its innovation just yet. The company lost $4.1 million in the first quarter of this year, and competitors like Airgo, and Broadcom could very well have the upper hand.
Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on July 10th, 2006 with no comments.
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A few days ago I read something about ABC trying to out-hustle the DVR technology. I found it amusing because these studio guys are sooooo late to the game always. DVR as a technology is at a point where most devices will carry some form of time-shifting in the near future. What he should really be worrying about is place shifting, a technology that has been gaining in popularity, thanks to Sling Media.
Place shifting as a concept, however is about to get more interesting. We have learnt exclusively that SightSpeed, Berkeley, CA-based VoIP software and services provider is going to soon add place shifting features to its new video/voip softclient. (Screenshot after the turn.)
You should expect more such entrants in the place shifting market. Last week, Engadget reported about Novac, a Japanese hardware maker that will use Skype to place shift television.
This is how SightSpeed TV works: say you have a Media Center, and you download and install SightSpeed on it, you can basically set up an account, and have the television beamed to your Sight Speed client software on another computer. You can also place shift your television channels from a Media Center to a Mac as well.
The software will come with a virtual remote to change channels. The timing of this new software release is a little fuzzy, but we have seen a demo. Hopefully, we will be able to test it out, and report the results.
(A more indepth post on this whole trend of place shifting everywhere will follow, perhaps tomorrow in tandem with a big report on Cisco’s consumer strategy and role of Linux inside the home. Any data points, send them across!)
Written by Om Malik on July 10th, 2006 with no comments.
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WiFi phones are essentially changing the home-phone landscape, bringing cellular portability and cool into a realm that was once owned by the Bells and later folks like Con-Air and Coby (see: $9.99 special phones at your local drug store). Even though seem to be running a little bit behind schedule put forward by telephone industry leaders.
Not surprisingly, WiFi phones like D-Link’s latest, the $249 DPH-540, are essentially home phones with SIP connectivity to most major VOIP carriers (which means you’ll probably be able to use this thing with Vonage or your Cable company’s VOIP system). Surprisingly, this phone looks like a low-end, clamshell cellphone, which means the size and shape of these things will soon rival even the slimmest Motorola.
Best of all, this phone is compatible with PsipTN, which is a public VOIP telephone system that just may take the big boys down a peg or two. Expect firmware upgrades from D-Link in the next year.
Earthlink has plans to offer WiFi phones. Municipalities are also getting into the act, although only Taipei has created a faux-public network call “Taipei Easy Call” to unwire their offices and schools while making - or not making - a buck selling service to private consumers
Mobile carriers should worry about the trend because, if not today, or tomorrow, eventually the alternative s will get enough traction. If they follow the same design-and-feature curve as the cellphone, it won’t be too difficult to imagine a future where these WiFi things had better end up lying side-by-side with the latest CDMA or GSM phones.
D-Link DPH-540 WiFi Phone
Written by John Biggs on July 10th, 2006 with no comments.
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Gizmo freaks have a new device to spend their money on — Nintendo just launched their DS Lite, which is less than two-thirds the size of the original Nintendo DS and more than 20 percent lighter. It features a brighter screen and has settings that makes playing good even in day light. It costs about $129.99.
As an aside, while in London, I have seen a whole bunch of companies offering a free PSP along with mobile phone plans, but haven’t seen much of Nintendo anywhere.
Written by Om Malik on June 14th, 2006 with no comments.
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Tivo as a platform strategy is beginning to take shape, and the company is making moves that will pay-off in the long run.
Take today’s announcement. According to TVPredictions.com, they are adding more content providers to the mix. The experiment with C/Net’s technology videos must be working well for them to sign-on more content partners. Those who could be beaming their videos to TiVo users with broadband enabled boxes (about 10% of the total 4.4 million subscribers) include the NBA, and iVillage. Others whose content will show-up on include broadband content providers such as Heavy.com.
Now if they could add more such video content to the mix - say by buying someone like Akimbo - TiVo can start to show a new kind of value proposition. Of course the real value is in bringing web-based video selections from say You Tube or Google video to the living room would further enhance the value of the DVR maker. “There’s this exploding video availability on the Web,” TiVo CEO Tom Rogers told USA Today. “But for most people it’s not real until it’s on your TV.” Amen to that!
Written by Om Malik on June 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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Sprint-Nextel and Sling Media (makers of Sling Box) are in talks and trying to figure out ways to work together. Sprint is also talking to Orb Networks and Sony, betting that the three companies have the magic potion that will add more oomph to their mobile entertainment services.
Actually it is a smart strategy. Place Shifting television means that people would opt for more expensive data plans, especially the 3G kind. Sprint executives, according to the Reuters report, are betting big on mobile video, and would go as far as investing in mobile video. I guess, the experiment with MobiTV has shown mobile companies that even a small subset of their multi-million user base can bring in big bucks. Sprint has about 2 million subscribers who watch some kind of video on their handsets.
Written by Om Malik on May 25th, 2006 with no comments.
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So here is a one we didn’t see coming from a mile 
A tipster tells me that Yahoo has started offering Meedio DVR software as a free download to one-and-all, without much fanfare. Isn’t it dandy - that it took just eight days to brand Meedio as Yahoo Go (TV.) (Yahoo had acquired the Meedio technology last week.)
Still you don’t say no to freebies, especially ones that are as good as Meedio. Since it is a Windows only product, I have not tested it out. Maybe I will, but not until this weekend.
Written by Om Malik on April 25th, 2006 with no comments.
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Okay the headline is a bit misleading but there are some curious moves in the world of on-demand video. This morning AT&T (SBC) announced that it will integrate Akimbo’s on-demand video service with its AT&T Homezone service, which if you remember going to be powered by a special set-top box/DVR made by 2Wire that integrates the DISH Network, AT&T DSL, Yahoo-Broadband Services. AT&T Homezone is currently in trials. This is clearly a good move for Akimbo, which finally seems to be getting rid of its hardware strategy.
All the talk about Microsoft powered IPTV is good and great, but one wonders why AT&T is lavishing so much attention on this “Homezone” product offering. This whole IPTV thing might be going slower than anyone likes to admit. Meanwhile, Yahoo this morning acquired the technology of PVR company, Meedio. Dave Zatz thinks that “Yahoo will ultimately leverage the Meedio platform to interface with their music services and perhaps offer a video download service.”
Of course it could also mean that that much ballyhooed Yahoo-everywhere platform announced at CES is not going according to plan, and there have been rumblings that some of the developers have high-tailed out of dodge to do other things. Any tips, send them my way!
Written by Om Malik on April 18th, 2006 with no comments.
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Hollywood, somehow cannot get its head out of its asinus, and then blames people for swapping movies online. The latest example of this bone headed behavior comes via Movielink and Cinema Now.
Major studios are now offering movies on these services for downloading and burning on a DVD - which is good move only if you ignore the fine print. The movies you download can be burnt on a DVD but will play back only on your PC, but not on your DVD players. What! Crazy!
For the (in)convenience of the downloads on Movielink (jointly owned by the studios, of course), you have to shell out more cash than you do physical DVDs. At least Cinema Now is trying to keep prices reasonable. Oh by the way it will take between one to two hours to download the movies. Think about it this way, this might force people to upgrade to higher speeds, and perhaps switch from slower DSL plans to cable company offerings!
Written by Om Malik on April 3rd, 2006 with no comments.
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Its been a while since I wrote about 30 Boxes (read my review) and a lot has happened with one of my favorite online calendar apps. Narendra Rocherolle got married. The threat of Google Calendar became very real. 30 Boxes had a little hiccup due to transition to beefier servers.
Why? Because things are going well for the service. Seven weeks after the launch, they are doing about 130k page views a day. 30 Boxes has had 1.25 million user sessions, with each session lasting about nine minutes. “We have more than 35k registered users and 20% have been to the site in the last day” says Rocherolle. “The syndication of mini calendars on blogs and the likes is growing a very long tail of referrers.”
The best news - they are about to add iCal subscriptions, and are planning to open up their API so folks can write their own sync apps. But meanwhile for TV addicts, there is a brand new custom TV schedule feature, thanks to a mash-up with evokeTV. Narendra tells us how to add favorite TV shows to you 30 Boxes.
- Sign up with EvokeTV, make a schedule for the stuff you like, and you can choose new shows.
- Take the RSS feed for your Schedule from the EvokeTV, and copy the location
- Go to 30 Boxes, and in your settings click the “Web Stuff” and add paste the Evoke TV RSS link. Hit Add.
- That’s it. Shows info and small previews will appear on your calendar.
Written by Om Malik on March 31st, 2006 with no comments.
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Niall dropped off his TiVo for me to play around with, and I hooked up the Sling Media’s Sling Box, to get going on the place shifting bandwagon. With the baseball season around the corner, and I already having decided to pre-order the Yankees games, all I need is a way to see these games when away from home. The best option (not much of one) is to watch it on a Windows PC. (I would rather wait for the elusive Mac client, but that’s not happening anytime soon!)
So the next best option - watch it on a Windows Media Mobile Phone or a Windows PDA, thanks to a new beta software released by the company today. (Compared to XP, that is still acceptable.) Hey Blake: what’s with this windows only support? Is Mr. Softie making you do this - after all they invested in your company? Didn’t they? And they are the only ones quoted in the press release?
The SlingPlayer Mobile software works with both Windows Mobile Pocket PC 5.0 and 2003 Second Edition. Sling Media will also deliver a version for non-touch-screen devices based on Windows Mobile Smartphone within the next month. They are going to charge for this $29.99 software, which in my opinion is just a bad idea. After all you are selling the device, and you need people to use the device, and give them more reasons to spend $250 on the SlingBox. (Slingbox owners who purchase and register their Slingbox prior to April 26th will receive a free license for SlingPlayer Mobile.)
In many ways this is going to challenge the carriers’ own mobile TV plans. Sprint and Cingular make good money off MobiTV and they are not going to be happy about it. I still think, despite all the progress made in the networks, the bandwidth to get a reasonable Sling Mobile experience is about a year away, when EV-DO Rev A and HSDPA become standard.
Written by Om Malik on March 22nd, 2006 with no comments.
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Update: My report on Microsoft Origami just went up. Here is just a tiny sample.“This is yet another failed attempt to jam everything into one device,” says Pip Coburn, technology strategist with Coburn Ventures, a New York-based investment advisory firm. “The way I see it, they don’t really know what they want it to be.”