Douglas L Ross: Media

PC to TV Blackboxes

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 15:50:43 GMT

Hauppauge [HAUP; Nasdaq] and others are making these devices that the NYT's Mcmanus describe as "bridging the gap" between the PC and the TV enabling consumers to display "media content" that resides on PCs. Curiously, there is no word on the Hauppague website about the MediaMVP product that Mcmanus references in his article [From PC to TV Screen, a Stream of Multimedia. Your PC is brimming with great photos, MP3's and videos. But your family and friends are glued to the television. By Neil Mcmanus. New York Times: Technology] and no indication of its price or feature set.

Among other things, Hauppaauge makes a 350 Meg PC/DVR card that sells for $200.

Targeted Television Advertising

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 14:28:06 GMT

There is a significant battle going on for control of the intellectual property surrounding the delivery of targeted television and internet advertising.

Ad firm 24/7 pushing for patent power. 24/7 Real Media wins another patent for delivering digital ads, giving it new authority over the online-ad serving market as it pursues patent licenses to improve shareholder value. [CNET News.com]

Online Journalism Review

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:43:16 GMT

The Online Journalism Review is taking notice of blogging and some of the other implications of changing technology. Here are three articles

Participatory Journalism http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1060218311.php

Personal Broadcasting http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1060223904.php

When Bloggers Commit Journalism http://www.ojr.org/ojr/lasica/1032910520.php

Sexiest Man In America

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 19:10:26 GMT

ABC recently launched it's "Search for the sexiest man in America" contest in conjunction with TV show All My Children [ http://amc.tcsinteractive.com/phase3/index.cfm ] . The contest is comparable to some of BSkyB's iTV programs in the UK. Consumers can use their cell phones to vote by sending a premium text message to the show. [This requires a subscription to premium text messaging plus a transaction charge $0.50 per message.]

This is something of a milestone. It is the first time in the USA that we have seen a linkage between a television program and the use of cellular telephone text messaging premium services.

Targeted Advertising

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 17:33:18 GMT

This article is about the expansion of the bid-for-ad-placement concept from strictly the search domain to the general "web-site" browsing context.

If You Liked the Web Page, You'll Love the Ad. Online publishers are beginning to sense the possibilities of having Google or Overture serve ads to their audiences. By Bob Tedeschi. [New York Times: Technology]

Motorola Carbon Nanotube Television Displays

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 15:22:55 GMT

Moto Labs apparently thinks it has discovered a viable commercial process for manufacturing television displays based on carbon nanotube technology, which would theoritically provide a CRT quality image at a cost that is significantly lower than current plasma and LCD displays.

"Motorola’s NED [nano emissive display ] approach to displays could enable low cost, flat panel wall-mounted television, greater than 50“ diagonal, and just one inch deep to become a reality in the not too distant future. The technology also could be used for much larger displays, such as those used in billboard advertising or sporting events."

How Do Teenagers Spend Their Time

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 15:07:04 GMT

A number of news media have been reporting that Harris Interactive and Teenage Research Unlimited studies show that "the Internet has surpassed television in overall time spent to become the primary medium of choice among the 13-24 age group."

According to an article in PubZone [ http://www.pubzone.com/newsroom/2003/1x20030730x085831.cfm ] quoting the study results: "an average week for the teens and young adults includes 16.7 hours online (excluding email); 13.6 hours watching TV; 12 hours listening to radio; 7.7 hours talking on the phone; six hours reading books and magazines (personal, not academic). "

Carat On ITV Advertising

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 15:01:04 GMT

Carat has an interesting little item on their web site.

Is interactive TV advertising a lost dream?

09-Mar-2003

To many observers, interactive TV is starting to look like an unfulfilled marketing revolution. Potentially, iTV can bring a new dimension to advertising by adding relationship-building and transaction to what is already the most powerful brand-building medium. But operators' financial problems, over-promised and under-delivered technology and poor communication of digital's benefits have stalled mass take-up by consumers. With the current mismatch between potential and reality, is it worth investing time and money in interactive advertising?

Evidence collected by Carat strongly suggests that it is, and that iTV advertising can already deliver marketing ROI.

Although almost no-one switches to digital TV for the interactive services, Carat research with Netpoll has found that once people have access to them, they use them to an increasing degree.

Autonomy Acquires Virage

Thu, 10 Jul 2003 12:24:45 GMT

Autonomy (Nasdaq: AUTN) announced the purchase of a small company called Virage (Nasdaq-SCM: VRGE) which they apparently intend to integrate with their existing Dremedia division. Dremedia software uses Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating LayerTM (IDOL) technology and enhances it by providing a technology platform that automatically analyzes, understands, and manipulates video and audio content.

Acquiring Virage adds a software product suite that covers the creative side of video production, Internet publishing and webcasting. Virage is headquartered in San Mateo, California, and was established in 1995. It's products include:

VS ProductionTM for professional video production
VS PublishingTM for developing content into compelling Internet programming
VS WebcastingTM for planning and producing interactive, live and on-demand webcasts

The company has ~400 customers including: Cisco Systems, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Harvard University, NASCAR, Oracle Corporation, Pfizer, the United States Senate, Xerox and others. www.virage.com.

Here's an article in The Register about the acquisition. Autonomy swoops on Virage. Video Play [The Register]

Sony Plugs TV Into Notebooks

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 20:03:06 GMT

Sony plugs TV into Vaio notebooks. The Japanese company looks to boost its PC fortunes with a notebook that lets people pause and record live TV for future playback and another that packs Centrino wireless technology. [CNET News.com]

Microsoft At NCTA

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 19:10:46 GMT

Yesterday at NCTA, Microsoft introduce Microsoft^® TV Foundation Edition what they descirbe as "a new digital TV software platform designed to help cable operators get more value from on-demand and other digital TV services"

They simultaneously announced support (http://www.microsoft.com/tv/mstvIndustrySupportPR.mspx) for the platform from cable industry vendors Motorola, Inc., SeaChange, Concurrent Computer Corp., MetaTV Inc., Two Way TV Ltd. and Advanced Digital Broadcast Ltd.

They also announced a customer win (http://www.microsoft.com/tv/cablevisionselectsmspr.mspx) for the software platform with Televisa's Cablevision (CVC) subsidiary, one of Mexico City's largest cable MSO with ~450k subscribers announcing that they will adopt it.

Disney's Moviebeam

Fri, 02 May 2003 15:32:23 GMT

Disney has announced a service called Moviebeam which will deliver "VOD" movies to consumer homes via analog broadcast tv signals using datacasting technologies. The service requires a side-car TV settop box that will apparently have enough [PVR-like] memory to store up to 100 movie titles [~150 to 200 GB]. Disney plans to test the service in Salt Lake City apparently via its ABC affiliate station there.

This brings up the interesting question again about whether or not cable operators are obligated to carry the "datacasting" information embedded in the ABC television signal and thus to enable the use of Cable's network to compete with their own VOD services without any compensation from a broadcaster like Disney?

Integrated Digital Ad Delivery System

Mon, 21 Apr 2003 13:31:15 GMT

GTN, essentially an advertising agency which produces advertising [mainly for the Auto Industry] and Starnet [MediaDVX division which delivers digital ads via satellite, owned by the Lenfest people] have created an integrated system which uses an order entry system for adertising [owned by GTN] to enable ad agencies to direct digital ads to the right recipients by aligning the GTN order entry information with delivery information in MediaDVX's satellite distribution system. The integrated system does at least three important things:

It allows ad agencies to maintain control of digital ads from the time the ad leaves the "creative" computers until they reach the local broadcast or cable ad insertion points via MediaDVX's satellite system.
It reduces the time to deliver digital ads from days or hours, to minutes.
It thereby increases the amount of time available to the agency to create and customize the ads for local market conditions, essentially creating something like a "just-in-time" ad delivery system.

Sony's Streaming IP TV Set

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 19:43:37 GMT

Sony TV would grab streams from the Net. The company is developing a plasma screen TV set that's intended to tune in streaming video from home networks and the Internet as easily as regular TV programs, sources say. [CNET News.com]

Microsoft Windows Media9

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 14:29:39 GMT

This is an interesting analysis of the DRM issues surrounding Windows Media9.

Microsoft's digital media mogul. Dave Fester, general manager of Microsoft's Windows Media, needs to balance the use of digital media to boost Windows sales with the piracy concerns of the entertainment industry. [CNET News.com]

Internet Streaming Media Alliance

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 17:55:15 GMT

"The Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), a global alliance of nearly 40 industry leaders in content management, distribution infrastructure, and streaming media, today announced that it is releasing for peer review a new content protection specification which will serve as the technical foundation for the secure delivery of streaming and download media content."

[See press release http://www.isma.tv/pub/resources/pr.shtml?PR1011.txt ]

NCTA Responds To New Must-Carry Proposal By Public Broadcasters

Thu, 27 Mar 2003 12:11:40 GMT

The NCTA filed a response to a Feb 27 proposal on must-carry and and multicasting made by the Public Broadcasters association, PBS and CPB. This is the link to NCTA's response. http://www.ncta.com/PDF_FILES/lpow_0320_CSDock98-120.pdf

Media2Go From Microsoft

Tue, 18 Mar 2003 16:34:20 GMT

CNet reporting on Microsoft's launch of Media2Go software at CeBit.

Coalition of Broaband Users and Innovators

Tue, 18 Mar 2003 16:20:30 GMT

A fight is brewing between a Coalition of so-called broadband "users" [comprised primarily of companies interested in access to broadband for Internet e-commerce] and the Cable industry. The link is to the Coalition's recent exparte filing with the FCC

AOL Takeover Speculation

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 16:00:11 GMT

The LA Times (registration required) http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aol7mar07001427,1,5870376.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dbusiness picked up on a report issued today by Merrill Lynch [Jessica Cohen] which speculated that AOL may be a takeover target of the likes of Microsoft, Viacom or GE.

AOL Takeover Speculation

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 15:59:09 GMT

The LA Times (registration required) picked up on a report from Merrill Lynch http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aol7mar07001427,1,5870376.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dbusiness which speculated that AOL may be a takeover target of the likes of Microsoft, Viacom or GE.

BBC's Celebdaq Celebrity Trading Game

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 14:23:43 GMT

The basic principal is that clelbrities are traded on an exchange like stocks. Their value is influenced by player trading which in turn is influenced by, among other things, what the BBC broadcasts every Friday night at 10:30pm on BBC3. A very clever idea and apparently a sensation in the UK. Here's the link to the Celebdaq website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/celebdaq/index.shtml

Supreme Court On Spam

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 13:50:26 GMT

Foes lock horns in Web filtering case. The Supreme Court hears arguments to decide whether a law aimed at installing Net filters on public library systems balances free speech with the need to restrict porn. [CNET News.com]

Commentary on Reality TV

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 13:40:44 GMT

I'm a TV viewer -- get me out of here!. Watching faux-celebrities marinate in the Australian rain forest for 15 painful hours proves that even in the alternate universe of reality TV, less is more. [Salon.com]

Some Things Are "Born Copy Protected"

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 13:01:43 GMT

How Important Is Copy Protection? By David Pogue. [New York Times: Technology]