Shift to Web delivery – Page 4

Google Developer Day Announced

All of you budding code-aholics take note, Google is hosting ten Google Developer Days in their various offices around the world on 31 May.

They’re going to have workshops, keynotes and breakout discussions on Google’s APIs and developer tools.

Google have been running a few of these already with much smaller capacity. A few have happened in Silicon Valley and a couple in London that we’re aware of, but this is on a much bigger scale.

Google Developer Day Announced The program is being headed up by code-fan pin-up girl Marissa Mayer, who’s Google’s Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. She was one of the first 20 people to join Google (just imagine her stock options!) and the first female engineer hired by them.

They’re rolling out some of their top talent to get the code-kids hot under the collar. Get ready for this …

Guido Van Rossum, Google software engineer and creator of the Python programming language (Beijing); Chris DiBona, Google open source programs manager (London); Mark Stahl, Google data APIs tech lead (Madrid); Bruce Johnson and Joel Webber, co-creators of the Google Web Toolkit (Mountain View); Bret Taylor, group product manager for Google developer products (Mountain View); Lars Rasmussen, Google Maps senior engineer (Sydney); and Greg Stein, Google engineering manager and chairman of the Apache Software Foundation (Tokyo).

The subjects they’ll be covering also sound pretty enticing. Here’s a cross section, “Developing with Geo: Google Maps, Google Earth and SketchUp,” “Tools for Better Web Development: The Google Web Toolkit, Open Source and Other Developer Initiatives” and “Mashups and More: AJAX, Google Gadgets and the Google Data APIs.”

What does Google get out of this?
Google’s going to be lashing all of their cash, time and resources on this, so what’s driving them?

Google Developer Day Announced Well, people become more familiar with how to write programs to use their applications via the published API’s, which means the potential for extra advertising income for Google.

That’s all well a good but more importantly, Google get to spot the hottest programming talent around the world and can in turn try to persuade that talent to join the Google gang. Meaning Google ends up with the best programmers, not their competition.

Smart, eh?

Locations

Mountain View, California
São Paulo, Brasil
London, United Kingdom
Paris, France
Madrid, España
Hamburg, Deutschland
Москва, Россия (That’s Russia to you)
Tokyo – Japan
Sydney, Australia
Beijing,China

Those who can’t make it don’t need to be left out, Google will offer live streaming webcasts from its Mountain View office and provide a YouTube™ channel with videos of Google Developer Day sessions around the world.

Google Developer Day

Joost v0.9 Out: Grab Your Name Quick

There’s a new version of Joost just out today – v0.9 – and amongst the changes, is the switch from using an email address to login to using a username.

Any of those who were slow getting on the Skype-train and ended up with a crummy username take note, you need to act fast to get your name of choice.

To add to the pressure of this, Joost are also giving an extra five invites away to each Joost Member, so the names are disappearing fast.

What else is different with the new version?
The first thing you’ll notice when it starts up is that it now opens in full screen.

The ident has been moved from its previous dominant central position to the bottom right hand corner. The upcoming programme name has now taken its place now middle centre.

There’s been a little fiddling with the icons. Of particular note is the design and function of the one to the right of the channel name. It still brings up the programmes that are available on the channel, but it now has a back button that takes you to a menu of channels – logical really.

Content rating also appears to have been added – or perhaps I haven’t previously looked at any content that needed rating.

Picking The Prodigy, Smack My Bitch Up (Live), I was met with a screen asking me to confirm that I was indeed over 18 (quite why it was needed to see this is anyone’s guess). Interestingly the muted video appeared to run in the background, while I was working out exactly just how old I was.

Those of you who have been watching the development of Joost, will notice that the adverts are getting just a little bit longer and more corporate. The latest addition appears to be an advert for IBM notebooks, while it is visually interesting (for the first viewing), it’s hardly cutting edge funk-ville.

The only downside we’ve found so far is that it crashes – not something that we had a problem with in Joost or The Venice Project before.

Ooo … and we’ve seen there’s a promo video up on the Joost site too (new to us). It’s here below for your delectation.

[QUICKTIME http://static.joost.com/videos/joostvideo.mov 320 240 false true]

Joost

BBC and YouTube Partner

Another day, another content deal as the UK National broadcaster, the BBC, sign a deal with YouTube/Google to make a selection of their content available on YouTube on an non-exclusive basis.

BBC and YouTube Partner Two deals have been done, one with the BBC, the other BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC. Financial terms of the deal aren’t being discussed at all.

There will be three YouTube ‘channels’ under the deal. Two of them are live already, BBC and BBCWorldwide, with BBCWorld to follow ‘shortly.’

BBC is very much in the YouTube model, full of rough camcorder diary pieces, and behind the scenes shots giving an ‘insight’ into the workings of the BBC. Currently there are 31 pieces going back one month.

BBCWorldwide is labelled as “The best of British TV” and currently has 78 video pieces on it and contains a ton on Top Gear, Attenborough and a smattering of comedy shows like The Mighty Boosh and Catherine Tate. Will also “include a limited amount of advertising.”

BBCWorld isn’t up and running yet, but when it is, will only be available to YouTube viewers outside the UK. It will be advertising-funded.

Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC, likes the project, “The partnership provides both a creative outlet for a range of short-form content from BBC programme makers and the opportunity to learn about new forms of audience behaviour.

What’s it like?
Surprisingly for the BBC the quality of the video isn’t what it could be. Quite a change from the days when quality was everything.

Interestingly, fans of BBC content are barred from showing their fav ditties on any other sites as “Embedding disabled by request.” If the BBC has requested this, or YouTube isn’t clear. It’s more likely given they’ve paid the BBC for their content, and we imagine that they damn well want viewers visiting their site to see the videos.

This is great for the BBC as they get to distribute their content widely (fitting their remit) while not having to spend any money on distribution of the content, in fact receiving payment for the privilege.

BitTorrent Launches Legal Download Service

BitTorrent Launches Legal Download Service Once the biggest, baddest, mean mo’fo name in the world of web piracy, BitTorrent is going legit today with the launch of a digital store backed by a string of big name content partners.

The deal sees BitTorrent able to offer films, TV shows and videogames from heavyweights such as Fox, Lionsgate, Paramount, MGM, and MTV Networks, as well as content from indie distributors like First Look, Palm Pictures and Kadokawa and several video game distributors

After announcing its intention to give up a life of crime and go straight over a year ago, BitTorrent has been in prolonged negotiations with a string of studio big boys but failed to secure enough partners for their proposed autumn 2006 launch.

Although the company were keen to get all the big studios ticked off the list, they took a look around an increasingly crowded marketplace and realised that they’d better get their arses in gear before they became associated with the words, “ship” and “sailed”.

“We have been ready to go for a while,” insisted company CEO Ashwin Navin.

“There comes a point in time where you say we’ve got 10,000 titles ready to go and we shouldn’t wait anymore. We’re confident that we’ll be adding more studios soon,” he added.

BitTorrent technology

The peer-to-peer protocol developed by BitTorrent has proved massively popular on the internet, although mainly with people sporting an eye patch, a parrot on their shoulder and a propensity for saying, “oooo arrrr!”

BitTorrent Launches Legal Download Service
Despite its dodgy background, BitTorrent enjoys a high ‘brand’ profile which it’s going to need when going head to head with rivals like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com and Wal-Mart.

With its Premium TV and movie content looking much the same as everyone else’s and pricing pegged in a similar ballpark, we’re looking hard to find an exciting USP here for BitTorrent.

All of the movies offered will only be available for digital rental, with the content going kaput 30 days after being downloaded (or a day after you start watching it), with DRM being taken care of by Microsoft’s Windows Media Player.

We can’t see punters getting too excited by having to fork out for a time-limited, use-limited movie that offers a far worse deal than owning a DVD. Can you?

source

XBox 360 IPTV Coming To London

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 running as an IPTV box will be demonstrated in London for the first time in Europe on 5 March.

XBox 360 IPTV Coming To London It’s had an outing at CES in January this year and was well received.

There’s little doubt that the X360 has the grunt to be able to act as an IPTV STB – if anything it’s total over kill, given the considerable graphics ability it has.

Here’s what Robbie Bach, Sr. VP and Chief Xbox Officer, said about IPTV Edition, the middleware that the network operator will run to power the IPTV-ness of the Xbox 360, “IPTV Edition enables you to do, regardless of whether you’re a cable provider or a telco or any net operator, you can take live media, on-demand media, across an IP network and put it into the home on a high-definition television, and you can do multiple streams of that content without having to have multiple tuners in the set-top box. You really can produce an amazing TV experience.”

He went on to explain it’s not just about selling the IPTV software to the head-end, “this product sells SQL Server, it sells Commerce Server, it sells the rest of our backbone into these operators, and really helps broaden our business.” Hmmm, Nice.

It’s also been on what they call “scale commercial deployments” with the BT Group in the UK, Deutsche Telekom in Germany, T-Online in France and Swisscom in Switzerland. AT&T is working with Microsoft in the US.

There’s a history here
When the original Xbox was launched, Microsoft spent an awful amount of effort in denying that it was a going to be used to bring them closer to the TV in the lounge.

Despite this, they did quietly release some add-on software package that allowed you to pull picture and music from a PC. We bought it to give it a go, and found it to be disastrous. Hugely bloated software that needed to loaded on the PC that was to share and disastrous software that loaded on the Xbox. It was rare that it worked at all.

We assume that the X360 is considerably better than this.

The US version of XBox Live already gives subscribers the ability to download films and TV programmes to their X360s.

Viacom Joost Deal Struck

US media giant, Viacom, have struck a deal with Joost, the VOD TV to computer previously known as The Venice Project.

Viacom Joost Deal Struck Joost is currently in beta, and it’s understood that the Viacom material will be available for the yet-undefined launch date of Joost. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Joost users will have financially-free access to the content. Joost users will ‘pay’ by being shown brief adverts, that we call blip-verts. They only last a couple of seconds and aren’t _that_ offensive, if the video pieces that are being watched aren’t too short.

The Viacom channels covered by the deal are MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, Spike TV, Logo and BET.

Clearly Philippe Dauman, Viacom President and Chief Executive Officer, is showing his excitement at being involved, “We’re extremely pleased to be working with Joost, and couldn’t be prouder to be a key partner in the launch of the next generation in broadband video technology.” He’s not looking at the Joost deal as an exclusive though, “we’re determined to keep pushing and growing our digital presence and bring our programming to audiences on every platform and device that they want. In addition to strong partnerships we have with traditional distributors, we will continue to seek out partners like Joost, which has created an exciting breakthrough platform that represents not only a fantastic user experience, but one that is built on a compelling and sustainable business model that respects both content creators and consumers.”

All of this comes only a couple of week after Viacom threw their legal department at YouTube, insisting that they remove their content from the video sharing site and accused Google-owned YouTube of knowingly profiting from material stolen from them.

Viacom Joost Deal Struck Joost recently introduced a version of Joost to run on Apple’s Mac. Version 0.8.0.1 for Mac came out on Monday, following a brief period in Alpha test. They describe it as looking “very much like Joost for Windows, while behaving very much like a Mac application.” A growing number of Mac Beta testers are complaining that the software only works on Intel-based Macs.

Joost

Blair To Write To Each Road Pricing Petitioner

Blair To Write To Each Road Pricing Petitioner Over the last few weeks there’s been a lot of attention drawn to the huge number of votes cast by the British public in an online petition calling for the “Prime Minister to scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy.”

Over 1.5 million people have signed to show that they reject the idea from the UK government to force UK drivers to have to pay £200 for the privilege of having all of their car journeys monitored, recorded and charged accordingly.

On Saturday, the Guardian newspaper picked up on the idea that, as part of the registering views on the site, users had to enter their names, postal and email addresses, giving the UK government direct contact with each and every person who used the petition to voice their disapproval on the road usage charging scheme. They postulate that this gives them the opportunity of contacting the objectors directly to try and cajole them into changing their minds.

Quite if this is something that the petitioners realised when they placed their votes is unclear.

The site itself isn’t doesn’t really help either “our email will not be published, and is collected only to confirm your account and to keep you informed of response to this petition.”

Closer examination of the Privacy Policy makes it a little clearer- “unless you ask us not to, to write to you a maximum of two times about the issues raised in the petition.”

Blair To Write To Each Road Pricing Petitioner

The straw poll that we’ve taken among some of those who had placed their votes, felt their email addresses were only required to validate the vote. They weren’t aware of the chance to opt-out of being contacted at a later date.

Blair writes about writing
Sunday’s Observer sees Tony Blair publishing a piece explaining what a great idea it is to have over 1.5 million people telling him he’s wrong, and how it has sparked debate … which luckily enough was just what he wanted … he tells us now. (Let’s hope he doesn’t mean like his nuclear power debate).

He goes on to say “What it has given us is the ability, which was simply not there before, to engage with those who have signed the petition,” he then confirms that “Over the next few days, I will be sending out a response to everyone who has signed the petition against road charging, explaining the problems the country faces and why I believe road charging is surely part of the answer here as it is in many other countries.”

So is the whole e-petition idea a ruse just to find out who opposes government policy – then use this information to write to them directly to ‘inform them of why they’re wrong not to be thinking the same way as the government.

If they find out this isn’t successful with all of the voters, they will be taken into detention centers and have it beaten into them (OK, I made this last bit up)

I suspect people will want to have their say, but when they receive government spin in return, will stop using their real email addresses and start taking advantage of temporary email addresses like Temporary inbox.

The Petition

Many people have also questioned whether they should pay yet more money to use their cars as there’s already an effective tax per mile of car usage – the heavily taxed petrol that the UK government already imposes.

Amazon Unbox On TiVo Bound For US

Amazon Unbox On TiVo Bound For US Amazon are expanding their Amazon Unbox service to the TiVo platform. It’s being described as a “soon-to-be-launched service.”

Unbox offers TV programmes and films for rental or purchase, delivered down a broadband connection.

Amazon are taking a route much the same that Sky is in the UK. They initially offered the Sky Anytime service on PC first, and are now in process of moving it to their Sky+ box. TiVo are claiming 1.5m broadband-ready TiVo boxes in the US, significantly less than the number of Sky+ boxes in the UK.

The straight Amazon Unbox service (omitting the Tivo part) was launched in September 2006, delivering content to PCs and, by way of difference from Sky, portable device (as long as they were Windows Media Video-compatible).

The line-up of content providers includes the usual suspects – CBS, Fox Entertainment Group, Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

How do you get it?
Sign up for the service sounds pretty easy. TiVo subscribers simply log on to Amazon.com and follow a few simple steps to establish a link between their broadband connected TiVo Series2 or Series3 box and their Amazon account. The list of available content will then make its way down the broadband pipe, to be displayed on the usual TiVo “Now Playing” list.

Prices for television episodes are $1.99, with most films costing between $9.99 and $14.99 for purchase. Film rental starts at $1.99.

Respect for the customer
In a move that shows that TiVo/Amazon look at things from the consumer perspective, all purchased videos are automatically stored in each customer’s “Your Media Library” at Amazon.com for future access and download. This is absolutely the right way to do this, rather than forcing the consumer to buy it all again in their hardware gets into difficulty.

Amazon Unbox On TiVo Bound For US Impact
We suspect that Amazon won’t be stopping at delivering Unbox to TiVo and are likely to offer it on other PVR platforms after a period of exclusivity.

Given the straight Amazon Unbox service is wrapped in Microsoft’s DRM, we assume some kind of content protection will be applied to the Amazon Unbox on TiVo content. What is unclear is if this will also be by Microsoft – highly unlikely given TiVo runs on a Linux platform.

Potentially having to apply a second form of DRM to all of the content will be a major overhead for Amazon.

TiVo on Amazon Unbox
Amazon on Amazon Unbox

MP3Tunes Oboe: Now Unlimited Free Storage

MP3Tunes Oboe: Now Unlimited Free Storage Oboe, the MP3Tunes.com online music service is increasing its previous 1Gb of free music storage to unlimited storage to some of its registered users.

The bold move was signalled when we received an email notification today that our account had been given the magic blessing.

MP3Tunes takes a different approach to iTunes and other on-computer music management software. Rather than have all of your music stored on the machine you are listening to it on, the music is stored on the Internet.

To listen to the music you can either use their application; or plugins for Browsers (Firefox or ie); or media players (iTunes and Winamp). Access to the music is also free.

This brings the advantage that your music can be played by any Internet-attached computer or device that you might have to hand, including TiVo, Nokia 770 and Series 60 phones.

MP3Tunes Oboe: Now Unlimited Free Storage

Uploading music is done using their Oboe Sync 2.0 software which runs on Microsoft Windows 2000/XP, Mac OSX and Linux.

They’re not sniffy about the music file formats either, with a comprehensive selection supported (MP3, MP4, M4A, M4P, AAC, WMA, OGG, AIF, AIFF, MIDI). Pointedly it is also stated that “Digitally Restricted Files may not play.”

The unlimited service, previously called Premium, used to cost $40/year. As with their previous offering, there may limits on the size of each file that you upload, but at time of going to press, this remains unclear.

A bit of history for you …
Mp3Tunes was started by Michael Robertson, the founder of MP3.com, the trail blazing music service that started in 1998 and eventually had to close after a concerted legal attack by the music business.

In 2000 mp3.com started my.mp3.com, a service very similar to the Oboe service offered now offered by MP3Tunes. We hope that their new service doesn’t suffer the same end.

Impact
We think this move to an unlimited service could just start to put a dent in the dominance of iTunes, particularly in Europe, where legal pressure is building on them.

Being able to access music collections from work as well as home, without having to physically carry them, is a big boost.

As far as sustaining the service, because clearly there’s a fair cost in offering something like this, we assume the income will arise from the sale of additional music to the people who embrace the service.p

Now Is the Time for Blockbuster to Make Its Move

It’s time for Blockbuster to get into the online download business. The market is only now emerging and the pickings are slim, but it’s not too soon for the company to expand its offerings to include web-based movie downloads and rentals. It could be the only company to offer a true “triple-play” of mail, brick-and-mortar, and online access – a combination that (given innovative marketing) could give a second wind to a dying brand and uniquely position the company for long-term success.

Failure to Launch
Blockbuster has a lousy record when it comes to identifying and quantifying emerging trends that may impact its business. Once a leviathan in the consumer video space, Blockbuster has seen its DVD sales migrate to mass retailers such as WalMart and Target; its DVD rentals cannibalized by Internet-based mail order houses (NetFlix); and its movie rental revenue snacked on by PayTV and on-demand providers.

The result? The company enjoys the unique ‘blessing’ of managing hundreds of retail outlets, many of them struggling to stay open, others being shuttered on a weekly basis. The ‘local video store’ may never fade away, but Blockbuster’s version of it is dying a slow death.

What Train?
Of particular embarrassment was Blockbuster’s inability to foresee the emergence of NetFlix. Blockbuster’s senior strategists sat idly by as a no-name upstart gobbled up millions of Blockbuster converts who wanted a better video experience and knew how to take advantage of a basic Internet-connected PC.

Even now Blockbuster continues to play second fiddle to a once-tiny company that had an interesting idea, a decent understanding of technology, and a unique business model. Blockbuster’s leadership simply didn’t see the train coming, and by the time they did realize that NetFlix was for real, the train had pretty much rolled over them.

To give you an idea how much was at stake, simply take a look at NetFlix’s Q4 2006 earning statements revealed on Wednesday, January 24, 2007: NetFlix now has more than 6.3 million subscribers (compared to Blockbuster’s 2 million online subscribers) and enjoyed fourth quarter revenue of $277 million. That’s got to hurt!

Hard to Shake Old Habits
In March 2006, Blockbuster CEO John Antioco stated that the company had a “digital future” that could very well take it to a greater size than it achieved as a primarily store-based business. If judged by Blockbuster’s conduct since that time, he must be the only one who knows that strategy.

Yes, Blockbuster was an early investor in CinemaNow but never was a strong supporter of the concept or the company (it was too busy tending to NetFlix-related wounds). Yes, in June 2006 Blockbuster reportedly tried to buy a majority stake in Movielink for $70 million but the deal was killed. In both these cases, however, the Blockbuster brand was not involved – these strategies involved leveraging an existing online brand (neither of which have to date enjoyed any success).

Today, Blockbuster still has no real presence in an important emerging market while brands such as Amazon and Apple have already started building their own online rental and sell-thru video businesses.

Yet a recent shift in Blockbuster’s strategy may be the first sign that the company is actually aware of what cards it does hold.

Extending the Logic of Blockbuster’s “Total Access”
In November 2006, Blockbuster rolled out its “Total Access” program, an initiative that gives customers the option of returning DVDs through the mail or at their local Blockbuster store where, should they choose, they could pick up movie for free (but with time limit on viewing and return required at the same store). According to CEO Antioco, Total Access is the reason why Blockbuster’s online user base grew to 2 million at year-end 2006, up 500,000 in the fourth quarter alone. This is just speculation on his part (no evidence was cited) but it is interesting nonetheless.

To blend the concept of the direct mail DVD rental service with its local retail stores – and to brand the offering separately – would appear to be an obvious move. For Blockbuster, however, this represents a strategic revolution compared to its usual blind-leading-the-blind strategic thinking. (Again, this is the same company that thought it could bury NetFlix in just a couple years.)

Tactically, blending these two businesses makes a lot of sense. Strategically, however, it’s a better move than first glance might indicate.

New Moves for New Media
What’s the one thing that Blockbuster has that NetFlix, Apple, or CinemaNow don’t have? Hundreds of ‘brick-and-mortar’ retail video stores. None of these competitors has an interest in getting into the brick-and-mortal video distribution business, but this is precisely why Blockbuster has a lock on this notion. Ironically, it may be the local video stores that end up the centerpiece of Blockbuster’s digital future. They provide Blockbuster with a one-of-a-kind local marketing channel through which it can educate its customers about the benefits of online distribution and how to enable it, while still serving the needs of those interested in mail or in-store procurement.

Combining the online mail-order DVD and stand-alone retail businesses should be but the first step in a larger journey that culminates in a Blockbuster “triple-play” that also incorporates a full-blown online movie rental and sell-thru service. Not a CinemaNow or Movielink service, but a Blockbuster-branded offering that, when blended with the retail and mail-order channels, represents a comprehensive but tightly integrated offering that competitors simply can’t match. This comprehensive vision would serve Blockbuster well: it could minimize or recast what cannibalization did occur because of digital distribution by providing a comprehensive yet cohesive market message, one in which Blockbuster is itself recast as the true innovator in consumer video.

As well, Blockbuster has the brand clout to help legitimize online video distribution. Think of how Apple’s entry into the online video business (and its pending introduction of the AppleTV set-top box) has drawn attention to the progress that online video has made, as well as enhanced the awareness of online movie services. Blockbuster’s entry would have a similar impact, but instead of speaking to Apple fans and technology enthusiasts, it would whisper to the mass audience of Internet households that (given the right equipment) a broadband connection is now a legitimate conduit for delivering on-demand movie content to your primary home TV.

Sure, this type of prognostication is best reserved for long-term strategy discussions, but that’s exactly how Blockbuster should be thinking. After all, if you’re going to say you have a “digital future,” it’s to the future you should first look. Then and only then can you identify the steps necessary to enable that future to materialize.

A claim must first be staked out, this one in a virtual world where Blockbuster’s current and future competitors are building fortifications. And guess who’s setting up camp? NetFlix.

Michael Greeson, Founding Partner & Principal Analyst, The Diffusion Group