Douglas L Ross: On-Demand Content

AOL Video Instant Messaging Ban Lifted By FCC

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 16:06:20 GMT

The NYT wrote another editorial in its news pages by focusing about 75% of the arguments in this article on the anti-monopoly viewpoint and backhanding the logic for why the FCC had no business interferring in an emerging technology in the first place.

F.C.C. Lifts Ban on Video for AOL Instant Messaging. The Federal Communications Commission has granted a request by AOL Time Warner to drop restrictions on adding video to its AOL instant messaging service. By David D. Kirkpatrick. [New York Times: Technology]

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.

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]

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.

The Amazon.com Portal

Mon, 21 Jul 2003 17:47:01 GMT

Amazon is apparently trying to do what the Library of Congress probably should do, that is make archived book content searchable.

Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books. Amazon.com is negotiating with book publishers to assemble a searchable online archive with the texts of thousands of nonfiction books. By David D. Kirkpatrick. [New York Times: Technology]

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?

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]

Trusted Computing

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 17:48:21 GMT

Wave Systems announced their earnings for Q4 2002 today. According to their press release [see exerpt below] they are looking for strategic partners.

"Steven Sprague, Wave's president and CEO, said, "In order to raise the additional capital required to fund Wave's operations, we have engaged an investment banking firm and are exploring a number of financing alternatives which include debt or equity financing (or a combination of both) or one or more commercial or strategic transactions."

"The personal computing industry is now committed to a historic transition to trusted computing. The most influential players -companies including Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, AMD, National Semiconductor, Infineon and others - have publicly committed to a trusted PC environment secured by a hardware chip. Without a doubt, today's inherently insecure PC is morphing to tomorrow's secure and trusted PC which will offer a range of productive services for users. Wave's long commitment to hardware and services-secured trusted computing has made us influential in the evolution of this huge and evolving market opportunity."

Sub $150 DVDs With MPEG-4-compatible Decoder Chips

Mon, 31 Mar 2003 15:12:51 GMT

EETimes reports that Cirrus Logic has licensed the DivX technology for its DVD processors. http://www.eet.com/sys/news/OEG20030326S0049 According to the article:

"By early 2004 Cirrus Logic said its chips would allow users to play DivX content from the web in real-time as well as access the Internet and play streaming audio content. The devices would also enable service providers to offer direct video-on- demand services. "

Media2Go From Microsoft

Tue, 18 Mar 2003 16:34:20 GMT

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

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]

Gambling, The Ultimate Online Moneymaker

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 13:30:45 GMT

Cable firms look to gaming. Online gaming could offer a way out of debt for cash-strapped cable TV firms in the UK. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

PathOne The Video Over IP Networks Guys

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 22:17:12 GMT

Pat Bohana has joined PathOne as VP and General Manager http://investors.path1.com/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=PNWK.OB&;script=410&layout=-6&item_id=385991

Bob Clausen is also with PathOne http://investors.path1.com/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=PNWK.OB&;script=410&layout=-6&item_id=387878

Announcing a few "breakthroughs" in video over IP cost and quality http://investors.path1.com/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=PNWK.OB&;script=410&layout=-6&item_id=387130

Google

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 14:48:40 GMT

An interesting summary of what Google is by a guy named Jason Kottke: "Google is not a search company." via Kevin Werbog's weblog. [Werblog]

Google and Targeted Advertising

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 20:04:09 GMT

Google announced today (http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/advertising.html) a "content-targeted advertising" service which proposes to replace general website ads with "relevant sponsored links" similar to those displayed in its own search engine, and in the search pages of its affiliates.

Here's how "content-targeted advertising" by Google appears to work:

Google's proprietary classification engines identify "the meaning of a web page"
Based on that, and presuming a 3-way arrangement between Advertisers - Google - Websites, Google then automatically serves "relevant" ads from its stable of participating advertisers
Relevance to a website is [apparently] based on Google's classification scheme, and the order of relevant ads served is [apparently] based on Google-measured click-through response rates [now competing with Double-Click and others].

Here's a link to a Motley Fool article about this: Google's Banner Day. The search king moves into third-party advertising. [The Motley Fool] and another in Wired News: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,57900,00.html

Apple Computer

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 18:17:45 GMT

This is another example of a hardware guy getting into the services business.

Apple gears up to sell music online. Not innovation, necessity [The Register]

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 14:11:42 GMT

'Reassurance' a key word as Google grows. The search site's move into blogging, and its further expansion into advertising, has some concerned about a conflict of interest and whether Big Brother could be Googling you. [CNET News.com]

Does The Content Industry (At Least Music) Start To Get It About Online Sales

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 14:00:11 GMT

E-Music Sites Settle on Prices. It's a Start.. After years of confusion, most of the big record labels have coalesced around a set of prices at which they will sell their music online. By Saul Hansell. [New York Times: Technology]

CED article about AOL MusicNet service http://www.cedmagazine.com/cedailydirect/0302/cedaily030226.htm#1

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 13:50:19 GMT

Online Library Wants It All, Every Book. The directors of the new Alexandria Library have begun an ambitious effort to make virtually all of the world's books available at a mouse click. By Robert F. Worth. [New York Times: Technology]

N2 Broadband's "Open" VOD System

Tue, 25 Feb 2003 16:21:13 GMT

N2Broadband makes the following claims for its new VOD system:

"The OpenStream platform includes the following components:

Open, published interfaces that enable rapid deployment of new services;
Global Resource Management allows multiple services – such as high speed data, delivery of broadcast television, and VOD – to cooperatively share network resources and efficiently use available bandwidth;
Support for multiple VOD streaming servers, leading VOD applications, both conditional access networks, and all major billing systems;
Business management for back-office standard reporting and administration;
Asset management for managing the validation, localization and propagation of content;
Open data platform for billing, marketing and operations reporting;
Network management for remote system administration; and
Network Operations Center providing 7x24 support."