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CinemaNow Delivers Music Videos for PC, Mobiles Broadband movie-on-demand outfit CinemaNow appears to be a company that's open to new ideas. Along with Movielink, it was one of the first companies to rent movies that are downloaded over broadband connections, the first to offer some of those movies on a download-to-buy basis and recently started offering news on-demand and renting exclusive previously unaired TV programs. Now CinemaNow has branched out even more - all the way to mobile devices. The company has launched WatchMusicHere.com, a new Web site that lets visitors download music videos. The videos, which are purchased on a permanent basis rather than offered for rent, range in cost from $1.99-$2.99 each. Once a video is purchased, the user can watch it an unlimited number of times on the selected playback device. Like most of the other for-pay music and video download sites out there, WatchMusicHere is only compatible with Windows-based PCs and portable devices. When a user chooses a video to download, he specifies whether it will be played back on a PC, Portable Media Center, Pocket PC or Smartphone. He can then download the video in the appropriate format to a PC and transfer it to the secure device using Windows Media Player 10. Because the video files use Windows Media 10 technology, they're all protected with digital rights management and can only play back on a single device. They can, however, be burned to CD for storage. According to the WatchMusicHere site, even if burned to a CD, the disc will only play on the PC to which the file was downloaded; it won't play in DVD players or other PCs. CinemaNow has secured licensing deals with Warner Music Group and TVT Records to sell their videos through the new service. The DVD-quality videos are available in a variety of genres including country, electronica, metal, pop, R&B, rap and rock. According to the companies, this is the first time that record labels are offering both "classic" and new music videos through an online service. "As the innovator in digital sell-through technology and the leader in providing video content for mobile devices, expanding beyond movies and TV shows is a natural extension," said CinemaNow president Bruce Eisen. "Launching WatchMusicHere.com is another demonstration of the diverse applications for our new revenue stream and we are equally thrilled to be working with Microsoft's Windows Mobile division to continue to provide valuable content for their innovative product lines." The site launched with 75
videos and expects to add more than 1,500 by the end of the
year. Back
to Headlines
TiVo this week landed a major deal with Comcast, the world's largest cable TV service. Comcast's DVR users, including those using existing non-TiVo-based Comcast-supplied DVRs, will in mid-to-late 2006 be able to access and use the TiVo service and also its interactive advertising capability. The two companies said the seven-year deal calls for them to work together to develop a version of the TiVo service that will be incorporated into Comcast's existing network and marketed under the TiVo brand name in the majority of Comcast's operating geography. Financial terms of the non-exclusive deal were not detailed. It's known, however, that Comcast will pay TiVo an upfront fee for the technology, followed by monthly fees that are based on the number of Comcast customers who subscribe to the TiVo service and the advertising revenue. When asked on CNBC's "Closing Bell" why Comcast subscribers, who could get Comcast's DVR service included in the monthly fee, would pay an additional $2 to $4 a month for the TiVo service, TiVo vice-chairman Tom Rogers said that TiVo users fall in love with the service. They say it changes their life, he said. He also noted that Comcast's monthly fee for the TiVo service had not been announced. A SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst speculated that if TiVo received a dollar a month per Comcast TiVo subscriber, it would get $19 million a year if 20% of Comcast's digital TV subscribers signed up. Subscribers to Comcast's version of the TiVo service will be able to use the "award winning" TiVo user interface for functions such as "Season Pass" - for recording all episodes of a TV series, "Wish List" - for finding and/or recording TV shows and movies with specified actors and actresses and "Suggestions" - for getting recommendations and occasional automatic recordings of TV shows based on past viewing habits. One significant function Comcast's TiVo users will get that DirecTV has disabled is the ability to schedule recording over the Net, such as from the office. A Focus on Home Networking The companies said that the service "will showcase TiVo's home networking, multimedia and broadband capabilities." According to Motorola, that means subscribers will actually be able to use those functions. This is an important distinction because: a) with those functions enabled, the DVR becomes the leading contender to turn into the media server for home networks in competition with other devices, most notably those based on an Intel-Microsoft platform; and b) it would give Comcast a competitive edge over the DirecTV TiVo box and service, its most formidable competitor. Even though networking, multimedia and broadband capabilities are built into DirecTV's TiVo boxes, the satellite TV provider has disabled them for undisclosed reasons. Comcast's inclusion of those three functions could put pressure on DirecTV to make those functions operational. Silencing the Critics It's estimated that TiVo, with help from DirecTV, had about one-third of the DVR market last year. Rogers was quoted in an AP article as saying that the Comcast deal was like an icebreaker. Rogers, who was once the VP for cable TV at NBC, said, "I've done a lot of deals with the cable industry, and when you do a deal with the largest cable operator it's very helpful in opening up other doors in the industry." Landing an account such as Comcast is like TiVo getting a new source of financing because it has the money and the incentive to get as many DVRs installed as it can. Comcast, for example, charges $9.95 a month for the DVR including the box and the service; another $5 a month gets high-definition. DirecTV charges $49 for its version of the TiVo box and $4.95 a month for all a home's TiVos. It gets rid of the monthly fee if the subscriber takes DirecTV's premium package. TiVo itself charges $12.95 a month or $295 for a lifetime subscription.
Comcast's Motorola box and DirecTV's TiVo boxes both have dual tuners - record one channel, watch another. TiVo's own unit does not. Comcast's dual tuners require only a single cable line to the DVR, but DirecTV's dual-tuner requires a second line from the dish to the receiver. DirecTV includes a "standard" installation, but the installer has to drill more holes. Also, the DirecTV box has to be connected to a telephone line - how 20th century - the Comcast box does not. Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said that his company is focused on "providing our customers with a 21st Century television experience." He said, "TiVo has revolutionized the way consumers watch and access home entertainment. By partnering with TiVo, we are continuing to deliver technology that enables our customers to watch what they want when they want on TV. This agreement also reflects our commitment to work with leading technology providers to offer customers more value and choice in their home entertainment experience." Finally, a Cable Deal TiVo executives told financial analysts in January that it did not need to sign a cable TV company to grow its business. The company said that it could make it selling products to consumers through retail outlets. Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Gene Munster told the AP that the Comcast deal represents a "180-degree turn" from the independent approach - but the reversal was shrewd. It was this or an acquisition. The company is still troubled. But if they're successful in making similar deals with other cable companies, getting other subscribers hooked onto the service, the company could be viable." "It is very important that TiVo has found a way to work with the nation's largest cable operator on a cooperative basis to develop a state-of-the-art TiVo service, fully integrated with a cable set-top box, that will make TiVo available to millions of cable viewers," said TiVo's Rogers. "This is a real milestone for TiVo and for the cable industry, but most importantly it is a milestone for television viewers." Steve Burke, president of Comcast Cable and COO of Comcast, said the company is excited about adding the TiVo service to its video-on-demand, high-definition broadcasts and other premium services. He acknowledged TiVo's "clear track record of customer loyalty" and its "cutting edge features." As an extension of the relationship, TiVo and Comcast will make TiVo's interactive advertising platform available across Comcast's customer base "without interrupting the award-winning TiVo subscriber experience." Hello TiVo, Come Join Moto Motorola has the advantage over rival Scientific-Atlanta in that its architecture is more open. Motorola's DVR platform lets cable TV service providers select the DVR software and service that they prefer. Moto provides the hardware and the basic DVR functions - record, pause, play, rewind, forward and storage functions - while TiVo or another DVR service provides the user interface for those and other functions plus the on-screen program schedule - the electronic TV program guide. The cable TV service could also offer other DVR software and guides such as TV Guide and Guideworks Guideworks is a joint venture of Comcast and Gemstar-TV Guide International. Digeo lost out on the Comcast-Motorola deal, at least for now, likely because its software requires pricier hardware than does TiVo. Ucentric, which Motorola recently acquired, does not have DVR software. It offers home networking by using IP-over-coaxial technology developed by Entropic for the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA). The Entropic technology has some advantages over Wi-Fi such as enabling multiple standard and high-definition video and data services to be simultaneously distributed throughout the home, over existing unmodified coaxial cable, without the need for a service call by a technician. Motorola, which shipped about one million DVRs last year, also has DVR deals with the likes of Time Warner Cable, Charter, Adelphia and Cablevision plus a number of cable TV companies in Latin America, Asia and India. It also landed a deal recently with Verizon, which has promised to become a major supplier of TV services in its territory. Where Now TiVo? However, the Comcast
opportunity won't start until mid-to-late 2006, perhaps at the
same time that DirecTV's TiVo sales starts to ebb. Ramsay said
on announcing the Comcast deal that deploying the TiVo service
to millions of Comcast homes nationwide would enhance TiVo's
recurring revenues. As to competition in the DirecTV account, Ramsay said that there have been a variety of delays to DirecTV's own HD DVR. He said that there is "industry skepticism around when it is going to arrive," but that the company had assumed it would happen in the latter part of this year. TiVo as DVR Value Leader TiVo said that for its first quarter ending April 30 it will add between 265,000 and 300,000 subscribers. DirecTV will account for 200,000 to 225,000, with TiVo's retail efforts adding another 65,000 to 75,000. DirecTV now accounts for two million of TiVo's total three million subscribers. Ramsay said that trends in digital media favor the company, citing the popularity of iPods, the growth in the number of homes with broadband and consumers becoming aware of the any time, anywhere advantages that digital media offers. He talked about the company developing TiVo capabilities for the PC and a TiVoToGo function that will let subscribers transfer recorded TV shows and movies to portable video players. Personalization, control and mobility were the keywords Ramsay used to describe the benefits the company's technology offers. Ramsay said he still believed it is possible in the next three to four years to get 10 million subscribers, a goal he had discussed in past meetings with analysts. He does not foresee the company changing its subscription fee - $12.95 a month or $295 for a "lifetime." The company is particularly
keen to license its technology to CE companies who could then
use it to develop innovative products that would increase
TiVo's subscription revenues. Ramsay cited a Humax-made TV
with a built-in TiVo DVR as an example. He said the company is
number one in the US for sales of DVD recorders with a
built-in hard disk. Back
to Headlines What's with DVRs? Aren't They Just VCRs with a Hard Disk? When they first came to market, the TiVo and ReplayTV DVRs seemed to be nothing more than VCRs with a hard disk and all the resultant benefits - easy to use, no tape cassettes to change and keep up with plus the always appealing "instant replay. If that were all they did, they'd have no role in the digital media market. Add a network/Internet connector to the DVR and it suddenly has the potential to become the dominant product category of digital media - the home's digital media server. Properly equipped, a DVR-centric product can attract a large number of users - TiVo already has three million in the US, which would become the installed base for storing the family's collection of movies, music, home videos and digital photographs. It's the DVR functions that'll attract consumers; it's the home server capability that will keep them. Few families would want to give up a DVR that stores the family's digital treasures. Remember all those tapes of TV shows and movies that people collected but rarely watched? The same phenomenon causes people to keep everything they possibly can on their DVRs, rarely deleting anything until necessary. Remarkably, none of the best selling DVRs come from the traditional CE makers such as Sony, Matsushita (Panasonic) and Toshiba None are based on the Wintel technology from Intel and Microsoft Instead startup TiVo, plus .Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta, two traditional set-top box makers dominate. With the momentum the three have, it'll be tough for the CE makers or PC makers to catch up. The DVR market does not appear to be a traditional retail business. It looks to be a market that consumers will order from their TV service supplier. Look at TiVo, the only known brand name DVR, excluding the diminutive ReplayTV. Like the brands "Kleenex" and "Xerox," TiVo has come to mean the recording of a TV show as in "I TiVoed the game." TiVo's Q1 forecast is that it'll sell only 65,000 to 75,000 units in retail stores compared to the 265,000 to 300,000 it expects DirecTV to ship. It's difficult to see how a Sony or a Samsung, a Dell or an HP could move into the DVR market at this last date and sign up one of the cable or satellite TV services. If the DVR makers keep adding digital media functions - and if the cable and satellite TV services keep pushing them - DVRs will become the centerpiece of the home's digital entertainment network. There is another important
point about the DVR business. Whoever controls the home's DVR
will be in a position to control the home's network. Consumers
don't have the time or expertise to do all the "tech
support" that business and government organizations must
provide to keep all their gear functioning. There will exist
at least two revenue opportunities in home networking: a)
installing and maintaining home networks and digital media
devices and b) off-site backup storage for the family's
digital jewels. Back
to Headlines Outgoing FCC chairman Michael Powell was interviewed at this week's "Voice on the Net 2005" conference in San Jose where ZDNet's Charles Cooper got these comments from him: -"Broadband is the fastest adopting technology innovation in US or world history," in response to criticism that the US broadband market trails that of other countries, that "it is in shambles." "No one turns a switch on and changes the world in a revolution." -"I think the telecom industry is in need of restructuring. I don't think it's in a healthy place for where it needs to be for all the digital changes taking place. The long distance industry is collapsing rapidly and for good reasons. Long distance is becoming a virtually free commodity. It's hard to have a multibillion-dollar business intent on providing a service that essentially consumers bypass for almost nothing.... The phone industry has been incredibly ripe for more power being pushed to the consumer and a lot more control over their voice communication services." -On the current state of old
media: "Audiences are fragmenting, newspapers are
collapsing, consumers are skipping commercials, putting
threats on free over the air broadcasts. More and more
Americans are paying for TV rather than getting it for free.
We have a high-definition transition that needs to be
spurred." Back
to Headlines Veil of Next Xbox Partially Lifted The next Microsoft Xbox will be much more than a videogame console. It will be an "entertainment gateway" that will work with other media such as digital music and online communication, according to Microsoft's corporate VP and chief XNA architect J Allard speaking at the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco as reported by eweek.com He said the unit will provide ultimate ease-of-use and customization =for gamers and a very developer-friendly architecture. Consumers should expect it to pave the way for the HD "era" of gaming. "In the HD era, the platform is bigger than the professor," Allard said in a written statement. "New technology and emerging consumer forces will come together to enable the rock stars of game development to shake up the old establishment and redefine entertainment as we know it." Microsoft, whose PR air is
being sucked up these days by Sony's new PlayStation Portable
(PSP), provided some details about the next Xbox. Consumers
will be able to play their own music while playing games.
They'll be able to download new game levels, skins, maps,
weapons, vehicles and content created by other gamers.
Back
to Headlines President Jacques Chirac told
France's national library to draw up a plan to put European
literary works on the Internet. Chirac wants a Euro- and
French-centric online library similar to the one Google is
doing. Chirac approved research into the project when
Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who heads the national library, said that
Google's plan to put books from some of the world's great
libraries online would favor the English language.
Back
to Headlines 35.5m New DSL Subscribers in 2004; World Total Passes 100m A few years ago many scoffed at the thought there would one day be 100 million broadband connections. The number of DSL broadband connections exceeded that number last month, and that's not counting the millions of folks that use their cable TV service for a high-speed connection. The growth rate for broadband has been phenomenal - over one-third of the DSL installed base, 35.5 million, were added in 2004. That's one new install every second. These numbers come from the DSL Forum and were compiled by industry analyst Point Topic. DSL connections in the US surpassed 16 million in 2004, with 4.3 million new connections. Canada now has 2.6 million DSL subscribers and Latin America sits at 3.4 million, with Brazil leading the way with more than half of the region's subscribers. Worldwide, DSL growth was enormous. Turkey, now approaching half-a-million DSL subscribers, showed a 725% increase last year, the Czech Republic 589% and Ireland 351%. Mexico, Malaysia, New Zealand and Lithuania all experienced DSL subscriber growth of 100% or more. China, the world's largest DSL population, saw a 2004 increase in DSL subscribers of more than 8.5 million. Rapid growth in European Union subscribers in both established and emerging broadband markets reinforced the EU's position as the number one DSL region worldwide. France came first with 3.25 million DSL subscribers added over the year. The UK grew by 2.8 million, Italy by 1.73 million and Germany by 1.4 million. "It is a significant success to have reached the 100 million subscriber milestone, with rapid growth in every region of the world," said Steve Kingdom, newly elected president of the DSL Forum. "It is also fitting that this accomplishment was announced at CeBIT 2005, as consumer electronics and the connected home have been, and will continue to be, major drivers in DSL deployment. We must now turn our sights to facilitating the achievement of our target of 500 million DSL subscribers by 2010." Point Topic founder Tim Johnson said, "While ADSL continues to dominate current DSL connectivity, deployment increasingly includes newer DSL options. ADSL2plus is rapidly growing in Sweden, Norway and France, with trials beginning in the USA and services coming on-stream in the Netherlands in 2005. This is increasingly the basis for triple play services. VDSL had at least five million connections by the end of 2004 - mostly in South Korea, Japan and China. VDSL2, delivering 100 Mbps over a single phone line, may provide new impetus when that is standardized in May 2005. We are also starting to see increased roll out of symmetric DSL services, with 1.2 million subscribers worldwide by the end of 2004." At CeBIT 2005 the DSL Forum
exhibited interactive DSLHome Showcase, bringing CeBIT
visitors the opportunity to experience firsthand how DSL can
improve their customers' lives. Focusing on educating
attendees about the potential of the newly evolved IP-centric
DSL architecture, and the variety of exciting services that
DSL empowers, the show provides a tour of the intelligent
home, including hands-on demonstrations of video on demand,
streaming video, IP telephony, online gaming, medical
applications, parental control and video conferencing.
Back
to Headlines Mediakabel Launches 3G Triple-Play Service Holland's Mediakabel has
launched a 3G Triple Play Content Platform called "Manycast"
that enables phone companies to offer live and on-demand video
services via cable, mobile phones and the Internet. Content
owners can deliver their goodies through various Web and WAP
portals as well as offer their services directly to consumers.
Manycast offers a fully automated workflow for managing,
encoding, publishing and distributing live television and
radio, as well as on-demand services to set-top boxes, PCs,
PDAs and mobile phones. It offers advanced digital rights
management (DRM) and a variety of payment options.
Back
to Headlines BT is trying to prevent Britain's Ofcom's telecommunications regulatory agency from splitting it into a BT Wholesale and a BT Retail operation. The company will appear before the Trade and Industry Select Committee to defend itself. BT's claim is that a "whole" BT is better for consumers. It also says there's no precedent outside the UK for the successful splitting up of an incumbent operator. At one time there was some talk in the US about splitting the regional phone companies into wholesale and retail operations but that thought has disappeared. In fact, the US telephone companies are in the process of recombining after a federal judge split the AT&T monopoly into regional services, leaving AT&T as a combination manufacturing-long distance company. There are only four regional phone companies remaining. One of them, SBC, is in the process of acquiring the remnants of AT&T. Providing competition to the ex-Bell companies are the cable TV and cell phone companies. However, even the majority of cell phone customers use a service owned by a regional telco, including Verizon with its Verizon Wireless and the joint ownership of Cingular, which recently acquired AT&T Wireless, by SBC (60%) and BellSouth (40%). Ofcom's goal is to ensure that
other phone retailers receive the same arms-length treatment
and access that BT gives its retail operation. BT and its
rivals will give evidence to Parliament this summer.
Back
to Headlines China's ZTE Lands France Telecom DSL Order China's phone gear maker ZTE
has landed an order for all of France Telecom's ADSL
equipment. France Telecom and China Telecom had signed a
partnership agreement that called for the two to make ADSL
gear purchases jointly. ZTE previously signed up China
Telecom. Back
to Headlines Ireland Gets Faster Broadband; Lobby Group Wants More Ireland's incumbent telco
Eircom will double the entry-level speed for broadband from
0.512 Mbps to 1 Mbps. The company also offers 2 Mbps to 4
Mbps. The lobbying group IrelandOffline says the increase
doesn't go far enough. The group's chairman Damien Mulley
said, "Eircom completely failed to address the pricing
issues, which means Ireland will continue to be one of the
most expensive countries in the OECD for entry-level broadband
services, while continuing to fall behind in high speed
access. This announcement would have been impressive if it was
made two years ago, but instead we are now left playing
catch-up once again." Back
to Headlines AT&T to Test WiMAX as Phone Line Replacement AT&T, in the process of being acquired by SBC, will test the WiMAX wireless technology later this year as a replacement for traditional data phone lines to businesses, according to Reuters AT&T CTO Hossein Eslambolchi said that WiMAX, which is backed by =Intel among others, could be used as early as 2006 to replace expensive data lines that AT&T leases from local telephone companies. With WiMAX, AT&T would
"not only be able to lower its cost structure, but most
importantly be able to generate new services and new
capabilities," Eslambolchi told Reuters The tests will
send data at speeds of up to 6 Mbps for each user over =a
distance of two to five miles. Eslambolchi said the tests will
use two different varieties of WiMAX, one that requires a
receiver that has a line of sight to an antenna and another
that does not. Possible Broadband Providers WiMAX has been touted as a solution for the so-called "last mile "problem. Currently only the cable TV, phone and electric companies have wires capable of carrying Internet data to the home. The electric utilities seem frozen in implementing a broadband strategy based on the Powerline standard. The phone companies are trying to supercharge their ancient copper wire to speeds that will carry video to the home while simultaneously spending billions of dollars to install fiber optic wires to the home. The cable TV companies appear currently to have the best wire technology - the fattest pipe - and are also trying to supercharge the coaxial cable to increase data speeds. Neighborhood WiMAX would provide a fourth data distribution network to the home. The increased competition would serve to keep the other three on their toes. The satellite TV companies could provide a
possible fifth delivery mechanism but have not been, so far at
least, very aggressive at doing so. Back
to Headlines The Last 1.8-Mile Broadband Solution Motorola's Canopy WiMAX platform for the licensed 3.5GHz band is expected to be available worldwide in early 2006. The platform includes infrastructure, indoor and outdoor plug-and-play customer premise equipment (CPE) and management components. It will have a non-line-of-sight range of about three kilometers (1.8 miles). Canopy will be able to handle broadband services, video transmissions and voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP). Motorola is expecting to sell the product to ISPs, governments, enterprises and carriers in some 85 countries. Its impact on the residential
market is unknown but could be considerable. An ISP or telecom
carrier could run a high-speed cable to the neighborhood, then
use WiMAX' wireless capability to connect individual homes - a
last "1.8-mile solution" with no costly, messy
wiring needed. Back
to Headlines NTL Sees 40% Broadband Growth, Increases Speeds UK cable TV company NTL increased its base of broadband users 40% to 1.3 million. Some 62,000 of the "adds" were from NTL's acquisition of Virgin.net in November. NTL estimates that the number of cable broadband subscribers will grow by 20%-25% this year. NTL has increased the speeds of its broadband products at no additional cost to its subscribers. The 0.3 Mbps service was increased to 1 Mbps; the 0.75 Mbps to 2 Mbps and the 1.5 Mbps service to 3 Mbps. Pricing is unchanged but a usage allowance was introduced. The 1 Mbps service has a 3GB allowance per month; the 2 Mbps and 3 Mbps services each have a 1GB per day allowance. NTL distinguishes its "allowance" from a "cap" by saying that it "reserves the right to contact customers who regularly exceed their daily usage allowance, where such excessive use impacts the quality of service for other NTL broadband customers." Before "enforcing" the allowances, which would then presumably be called "caps," NTL said it would give subscribers tools to monitor their allowances, and then offer the option of upgrading their service or paying for the increased usage. Separately, NTL said it is
testing an 18 Mbps broadband Internet service that uses ADSL2+
technology. NTL is also testing the streaming of
high-definition television over its IP-based fiber network.
Back
to Headlines EchoStar's Dish Network Hits 11m EchoStar increased its Dish
Network satellite TV service subscribers to 10.9 million at
December 31, up 15.7% over year-end 2003. In January, EchoStar
reported that Dish Network had surpassed 11 million
subscribers. The company said the growth was due to a number
of factors including the deal it made for SBC to sell the Dish
Network-branded TV service. SBC may become less dependent on
Dish for selling a bundle of services because it recently
announced that this year it will begin deploying an advanced
fiber network that will enable it to offer video services
directly. Back
to Headlines Rate Increase May Spell Death for Third-Party Broadband Providers New court-ordered FCC
regulations went into effect on March 11 that allow local
phone companies to raise the rates they charge third parties
to lease their infrastructure for providing local phone
service and DSL broadband. The so-called baby Bells - Verizon,
SBC, BellSouth and Qwest - no longer have to lease their phone
lines at government mandated rates. The expected increases are
likely to make it difficult, perhaps impossible, for the
third-party local phone and broadband providers to compete
with the Bells. AT&T, MCI, third party broadband providers
and others used the regulations to enter the local-phone and
broadband business in competition with the Baby Bells. Initial
price increases will be limited because the FCC capped how
much extra the Bells can charge over the next 12 months.
However, a year from now, they'll be able to charge whatever
they want. Back
to Headlines UK Online's 8 Mbps service,
launched in November, is available to UK households in a
number of regions, according to a BBC news report. BT Retail
will begin trials of an 8 Mbps service, which it expects to
roll out across the UK by the end of 2005, according to the
article. BT rival Wanadoo plans to trial an 8 Mbps service in
summer 2005 and also aims to roll out broadband services that
will provide speeds of up to 15 Mbps. Back
to Headlines The number of IP TV subscribers
is expected to grow from 1.9 million in 2004 to 25.3 million
in 2008, according to Multimedia Research Group It predicts IP
TV subscriber revenue will increase from $635 million =in 2004
to $7.2 billion in 2008. Back
to Headlines BT: Digital Content Market Growing Exponentially "The market for digital
content grows exponentially year on year and BT fully intends
to become a leader in this space," said BT Global
Services CEO Andy Green. The newly named BT Media and
Broadcast (BTM&B) will run BT's global media and broadcast
operations, which will integrate BT Rich Media and develops
channels to market for digital content. BTM&B will
establish a global capability with the development within 12
months of digital media hubs on the continent, the US and
Asia. The offering and structure will be based on BTM&B's
"BT Mediahive" digital content management
capabilities, enabling it to capture, store, manage and
distribute any type of media file, including video, audio and
still images. The recently established BT Entertainment
division will also take advantage of BTM&B's capabilities
to deliver consumer-facing broadband content.
Back
to Headlines Despite the race to higher
bandwidth and the implementation of triple play, most
broadband service providers in Europe do not believe they will
need to implement fiber in the next three to four years,
according to Heavy Reading's new report "Next-Generation
Broadband in Europe: The Need for Speed." -Shorter local loops in Europe -Lower interest in HDTV -High costs of deploying fiber; lack of regulatory relief for deploying fiber -Widespread belief that ADSL2+, VDSL and current-generation cable modems can supply most user needs through the rest of this decade. The report catalogs and analyzes Europe's residential broadband environment from the perspective of both the wider region and the individual national markets. Other key findings include: -Broadband adoption is surging throughout Europe, but there is still plenty of room for future growth. Total broadband lines grew by more than 65% in 2004, with the UK, France, Switzerland and Italy registering the highest growth. -For the countries included in this report, overall broadband penetration by household is 21%, but there is wide variation, with Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland all above 30%, and Ireland and Greece below 10%. -Among the largest national markets, Germany has the lowest penetration at 16%. -Total broadband access lines in the region will nearly quadruple over the next five years. The report predicts that broadband subscribers in this region will grow from 38 million at the end of 2004 to 128 million at the end of 2009, representing a penetration rate of 69%. -Growth is following a classic
S-curve trajectory; the forecast assumes that over the next
decade, growth will rise to 90% of households as incumbent
telcos replace their existing networks with all-broadband
networks. The report charts the current status and projected progress of residential broadband initiatives and forecasts which technologies are likely to drive the expansion of residential broadband services in Europe and which service providers are best positioned to deliver those services to Europe's broadband users. It also focuses on the broadband services deployment strategies of nearly three dozen national and pan-European network operators in these national markets, collectively covering nearly 400 million people in more than 160 million households. Based on in-depth interviews
with network operators and a thorough analysis of deployment
and market data, the report provides realistic projections for
broadband service development in Europe through 2010 and
identifies the strategies that incumbent telcos, competitors,
and cable network operators are taking to secure their
positions in the broadband market. Back
to Headlines Broadband Via Satellite Comes to European Hotels Otrum, which provides interactive TV service to European hotels, and satellite operator Telenor Satellite Broadcasting have signed a contract for the use of two-way satellite broadband. Otrum will use the service both to download films to hotels and to provide two-way broadband. Back to Headlines
LIES, DAMN LIES, AND STATISTICS US Ringtone Market To Top $700m in 2009 The US ringtone market more than doubled from $91 million in 2003 to $217 million in 2004, according to JupiterResearch The market researcher forecasts that the market will more than triple in 2009 to reach $724 million. Its recent report, "Wireless Market Forecast, 2004 to 2009," also found that revenue from mobile games hit $24 million in 2004, tripled to $72 million in 2004 and should experience significant growth through 2009, when it should reach $430 million. US Mobile Ringtone & Game
Revenue Despite the rapid growth last year, ringtones and games made up just 10% of wireless carriers' non-access data revenue in 2004. One reason for this, says JupiterResearch, is that ringtone- and game-capable handsets have yet to achieve high enough market penetration. "During the next five years, the mix of data services will evolve, but messaging will still account for 65% of non-voice, non-data access revenues," said JupiterResearch research director Julie Ask. The mix of premium content
revenue will continue to diversify over the next few years,
according to the report, as games, wallpaper, content and
productivity applications gain more traction. Ringtones will
remain the largest revenue stream for carriers in the premium
content category, but will not dominate as they have in
previous years. Back
to Headlines Digital Media Cultural Revolution Sweeping China A digital media "cultural revolution" is sweeping China, according to ABI Research, which says that the small-but-powerful objects at the center of the storm are not little red books, but portable audio and video players, along with high-definition DVD players and TVs. ABI reports that high-end TVs are gradually replacing CRT TVs in China and will do so at an increasing pace. However, 2004 was a disastrous year for China's DVD player makers who were squeezed between high patent fees and falling prices. Three high-definition disc standards surfaced in 2004: EVD, HVD and HDV. In February 2005, EVD was authorized as the recommended national standard for high-definition discs. EVD, HVD and HDV player makers face two big problems. First, they have to produce DVD-compatible players. Second, there is a severe shortage of movie content in domestic high-definition formats. While that situation lasts, soaring HD-DVD player sales will not improve the outlook for the domestic disc standard. Meanwhile, the MP3 player is replacing the traditional CD player as the mainstream audio device. Flash memory models far outnumber hard disk-based players. Color-screen MP3 players are appearing, but due to their high price and small memory, ABI Research does not expect them to sell very well. Two of ABI's recent studies shed new light on these and other important changes in the Chinese personal entertainment market: "TV, DVD Player and PVR Market Trends in China" analyzes the product lines and recent movements of domestic TV, DVD, HD DVD and PVR makers, and offers insight into the market's current status and future prospects. "The Chinese Portable
Audio and Video Market in Transition" presents a complete
list of MP4 and portable DVD player products and assesses
their market prospects, while identifying devices that attract
Chinese consumers - in turn defining opportunities for vendors
and content providers. Back
to Headlines Not All Piracy Is Music and Movies Pirates, the ones that buy, steal, download and trade illegal copies of digital media files, hit videogame suppliers just as they do the record labels and movie studios. A survey from copy-protection software outfit Macrovision of 6,000 PlayStation and Xbox videogame console users found that some 21% of them use pirated games. Macrovision does not currently make copy-protection software for videogames. This high level of piracy on consoles, which are generally considered to be secure closed systems, is surprising, according to Macrovision. The study also shows that 43% of all gamers who play pirated games download over 15 pirated titles a year. Over 74% of downloaded pirated games come from Web sites or peer-to-peer networks, while 21% of the games are copied from friends. "The prevalence of
high-speed Internet, and the availability of pirated games on
Web sites and peer-to-peer networks, have made downloading
pirated games relatively easy and widespread," said Steve
Weinstein, executive VP and general manager of Macrovision's
Entertainment Technologies Group. Back
to Headlines 'How-to' Videos Could Spark Consumer Downloads "How-to" videos could prove attractive for consumers to download. One "how-to" niche is home and garden projects. Showing the audience size for the niche are the latest Web site numbers from the Nielsen//NetRatings NetView research: Top Online Home & Garden
Destinations DVD Recorder Boom Continues, New Tech on the Way Worldwide DVD recorder unit shipments, excluding those in or connected to PCs, will climb from 9.4 million in 2004 to 67.7 million in 2009, according to market research firm In-Stat The DVD recorder market doubled in size in 2004 and will grow by 87% =in 2005, the firm says. The next wave of DVD technology - two waves, actually - are due out this year. Both are based on using blue laser to record and both offer significantly increased capacity sufficient to store complete high-definition movies on a single disc. - The Sony-backed Blu-ray: three manufacturers are already shipping in Japan. Blu-ray is backed by most of the computer industry including Apple, but so far only Disney and Sony have said they would offer movies on it. -The Toshiba-backed HD-DVD: Shipments are expected this year including about 90 movies. Warner Brow, Universal and Paramount have agreed to offer content on HD-DVD. HD-DVD units will play conventional CDs and DVDs, something that Blu-ray units will not do. In-Stat says shipments of both next-generation blue laser recorders and players, not including videogame consoles, are expected to reach four million in 2008. Sony's use of a smaller version of the Blu-ray technology calling UMD (Universal Media Disc) in its newly launched PlayStation Portable (PSP) will result in large quantities. Sony expects to ship three million or more PSPs this year. DVD recorders with digital TV
tuners will increase in the three main markets, Japan, Europe
and North America. The FCC requires every DVD recorder shipped
in the US to have a DTV tuner beginning July 1, 2007.
Back
to Headlines Philips Shows Off HD Media Processor Philips Electronics' newest PNX1700 Nexperia media processor chip offers high-definition (HD) capabilities. It combines media processing, network connectivity and display enhancement on a single chip. Philips says the PNX1700 is designed to deliver unprecedented picture quality of streaming movies, news, digital photos and TV programs, doubling the performance of previous processor chips while maintaining both hardware and software compatibility. Digital connected consumer
devices enabled by the PNX1700 include Internet-based (IP)
set-top boxes, digital media adapters, personal video
recorders, videophones and TVs. Back
to Headlines Apple Tips DVD Format Scales in Blu-ray's Favor There's an old Arabian adage that goes, "My enemy's enemy is my friend," which is not always too wise in the world of international politics, but where a business battle over a standard is concerned, it seems to hold largely true. And the arrival this week of Apple in the Sony-Philips-Matsushita-dominated Blu-ray camp reeks of a common dislike for the other side. Apple will, in fact, go onto the Blue-ray Disc Association board of directors, obviously a price Sony and friends were glad to pay to get Apple's endorsement. Apple was, after all, the very first PC maker to bundle CD drives into its devices (in the '80s) and it controls a big chunk of the TV and film industry's software for making, editing and burning DVDs and CDs. It expects to shift the market into the high-definition era sometime this year with HD versions of iMovie, Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro editing software. Apple is also set to put out QuickTime 7 with the H.264 codec bundled in. Both moves, backing Blu-ray and bundling the MPEG-defined high-definition codec, are deliberate slaps in the face by Apple against Microsoft, which has endorsed the competing HD standard from the DVD Forum and is also offering its own codec to the digital media community. The HD DVD standard adopted both Microsoft's VC 1 and the H.264 codec alongside the existing MPEG2 standard-definition codec. Apple QuickTime 7 will come out with a new release of the Mac OS X in the first half of 2005. The Blue-ray Disc Association now has over 100 members for its 50GB disk format. Along with Apple, its board includes Dell, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK, Thomson, 20th Century Fox and Disney. Faultline said that Blu-ray had won the DVD wars back about eight months ago, but the DVD Forum using a spec from Toshiba and NEC, refuses to lie down and claims to have signed up competing studios in Warner Bros, Universal and Paramount. The preceding article is from
Rethink Research's Faultline newsletter. Contact Charles Hall
at charles@riderresearch.com for a sample copy or subscription
details. Back
to Headlines SecureMedia, a developer of
conditional access and digital rights management technologies,
raised $4 million of venture capital financing. The Natick,
Massachusetts-based company's SecureMedia's Encryptonite
provides secure distribution for video-on-demand, broadcast TV
and other multimedia content over IP networks. Customers
include Sony, NTT, Texas Instruments and RealNetworks The
funds will be used to make additional hires in its
development, =customer support, sales and marketing divisions.
Back
to Headlines Hardware-based DRM Coming from Microsoft Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM
are already selling PCs with built-in "trusted
computing" hardware, according to CNET. The
specifications, developed by the Trusted Computing Group
initiative, allow software applications to "lock
down" data such as music or movie file to a specific
computer. Lock down will not be possible until Microsoft ships
the next version of Windows, code named Longhorn, in 2006 - or
later. Back
to Headlines Africa Wants First-World Countries to Self-Impose Digital Divide Tax
EU Drops Investigation into ContentGuard Acquisition The EU Commission has dropped
its investigation of Microsoft's proposed acquisition of
ContentGuard now that both Thomson and Time Warner have joined
Microsoft in the purchase of the digital rights management
firm. The Commission said that it does not have the authority
to investigate an acquisition where three companies are
involved. The commission said that Microsoft would not be able
to use DRM as a "gatekeeper" technology and
arbitrarily introduce a licensing policy. Subsequently, the
companies said they have consummated the acquisition.
Back
to Headlines Warner Asks UK To Get Tough on Movie Pirates Movie studio giant Warner Bros is urging the UK to take tougher government and police actions against film pirates who allegedly cost the movie industry more than $7 billion a year. Josh Berger, managing director of Warner's UK operations, said the movie industry is faced with the same threat that the music industry says cost them billions of dollars in sales for the past four years. "Deloitte Touche says that the cost of online piracy is even higher than the bootlegs, worth an estimated $4 billion in 2004," Berger said. The music industry says it lost an estimated $4.5 billion in lost sales of music CDs and a further $2.4 billion from online copying. "We need more help, like
encouraging the new EU accession countries to crack down on
piracy," said Berger said. "We need tougher
enforcement with police and trading-standards authorities
making combating copyright theft a high priority."
Back
to Headlines Swedes Raid Country's Largest ISP, Seizes Piracy Evidence The MPAA lauded the Swedish authorities for raiding the offices of Bahnhof, Sweden's largest ISP, last week. The Swedish anti-piracy group Antipiratbyran reportedly seized four servers that housed 1,800 movies, 5,000 warez files and 450,000 songs, in addition to data on as many as 20,000 Bahnhof users who may be guilty of copyright violations. "This was a very big raid," MPAA anti-piracy operations director John Malcolm told Reuters "The material that was seized contained not only evidence of =a piracy organization operating in Sweden but of online piracy organizations operating throughout all of Europe." The Swedish police seized
servers that stored some 23 terabytes of unlicensed material
including 1,800 digital movie files, 5,000 software
applications and 450,000 digital audio files. The MPAA said
Bahnhof had been "considered a haven for high-level
Internet piracy for years."
Back
to Headlines Apple Gains Rights to Use iTunes Domain in UK Apple has won the rights to use
the itunes.co.uk domain name for its British online music
service. UK domain registrar Nominet held that Benjamin Cohen,
CEO of CyberBritain Holdings, was "cybersquatting"
when he purchased the domain name. Napster turned down his
offer to sell it the domain name in 2004. Apple had offered
$45,000 for the name but Cohen wanted $50,000. Nominet also
ruled that the domain registration was abusive anyway because
Apple Computer owns the rights to the iTunes brand.
Back
to Headlines Sweden Proposes Tightening Copyright Laws Proposed changes to Sweden's
copyright laws would make it illegal to download, as well as
distribute, music and films on the Internet without the
copyright owner's permission. Justice Minister Thomas
Bodström said that the changes were aimed at those who make
money off of duplicating copyrighted material, not those who
download for personal use. He said, "With this new law we
want to fight against those who earn serious money by
spreading copyright-protected material...but the idea isn't
that the police will charge into homes hunting teenagers who
are sitting there downloading." Back
to Headlines New Australian Copyright Laws Tested The first major test of new
Australian laws that limit ISPs' liability for their
subscribers' copyright violations will get tested as the
Australian record labels take on BitTorrent users. Preliminary
hearings in the case, held in the Federal Magistrates Court in
Sydney, follow raids by industry copyright enforcer Music
Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) on the ISP Swiftel last
week. Back
to Headlines Dutch ISPs Send Warning Shots to File Sharers Five of Holland's major ISPs
have started sending warning messages to their customers who
use their Internet connection for illegal file sharing,
according to bizrate.com They will also forward a letter from
the Brain Institute, an organization representing the
entertainment industry in the Netherlands, to subscribers
suspected of illegally sharing music, film and software files.
The ISPs have not agreed to give their customers' names and
address to the entertainment or software companies.
Back
to Headlines Intel, T-Online Form Digital Media Partnership T-Online, Deutsche Telekom's broadband operation, and Intel have signed an agreement to make their digital media-oriented products compatible. They want to make sure that the entertainment content T-Online wants to deliver to its customers will be compatible with Intel-based devices that consumers purchase to view the content. Both want to make sure that content that's shared by various digital media devices such as PCs and media adapters will be easy to access and that the interface for doing so will be better. "The aim is to deliver home entertainment simply and rapidly. The cooperation with Intel is an excellent opportunity for us to help define the technical requirements so our customers can receive high-quality entertainment products such as films or games via all conceivable channels and in disparate usage situations," said Burkhard Grassmann, chief media officer at T-Online. "Intel will enable T-Online to firmly establish services in the home environment." "The digital experience at home or on the move will now become a positive experience that consumers will enjoy if a large selection of services and a wide range of devices can work together seamlessly. The less a user is aware of the technology, the more successful it will be," said Christian Morales, Intel's VP of sales and marketing for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "The cooperation between Intel and T-Online lays the foundation for this objective in Germany, if not Europe." Intel has set up a new division focused on developing digital media products. The first group of chips and chipsets for digital media devices is expected in the second quarter. To achieve ease of use and high-quality video and audio, the two say that technical hurdles will have to be overcome. The two also want future Intel-based digital media devices are easier to integrate into the network. The result, the two say, will be that users can access T-Online services directly by simply pressing a button on the remote control. The two also agreed to joint marketing of hardware and services, online advertising activities such as co-branding and technical cooperation to guarantee service quality and ensure services can be delivered to devices made by different manufacturers. Intel VP and director of worldwide sales Anand Chandrasekher made the announcement during a press conference at CeBIT. He said that digital equipment makers have a lot of work ahead to convince content providers, mainly the movie and music producers, that their goodies would be protected from illegal copying. Consumers, he said, will have to be convinced that they can easily play the online content they purchase or "rent" on a wide variety of devices connected to their home network. To that end, he said Intel is working with other companies in the Digital Living Network Alliance to make its DTCP/IP (Digital Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) technology an industry standard around the world. He showed several of the
concept PCs first shown last week at the Spring Intel
Developer Forum in San Francisco.
Back
to Headlines V2 has joined the growing number of independent record labels who've signed on to use Altnet to securely sell and promote their content on peer-to-peer networks. Altnet, a unit of Brilliant Digital Entertainment, provides a secure digital content platform that piggybacks on P2P applications such as Kazaa. Altnet's TopSearch technology includes the premium Altnet content in P2P search results, placing the secure files at the top of the results page. To kick off the partnership, Altnet and V2 will promote the upcoming release from UK band Stereophonics. The new Stereophonics album "Language. Sex. Violence. Other?" will be released through Kazaa and other P2P operators. Individual tracks will cost 99 cents each to download and the whole album will be $9.99. The two will also promote the album and band by featuring Stereophonics as Kazaa's "Artist of the Month" in the audio section. The band's entire catalog is available through Kazaa as well, in Altnet's protected format. Kazaa is also running a promotion to give fans a chance to win the new album on vinyl. Altnet's other indie label
partners include Koch Media, Artemis, Epitaph/Anti, Side One
Dummy, Palm, Simmons/Latham and Digital Rights Agency.
Back
to Headlines Motorola recently took the covers off a new mobile music solution that lets consumers take their favorite music - from their own digital collections or Internet radio - wherever they go. The new iRadio solution needs a broadband connection, Bluetooth technology and a Motorola to provide its full functionality. The idea is to offer users a "continuous radio experience," such as picking up a song in the car at the exact spot where you stopped it on the home stereo. Behind iRadio is Motorola software that lets the user subscribe to any of hundreds of Internet radio stations and provides access to the music stored on the PC's hard drive. Connect the Bluetooth-enabled cell phone to the PC via a USB connection, transfer the desired content to the phone and start listening directly from the phone or use a Bluetooth stereo transmitter to listen to the music through a car's stereo system. Motorola plans to start trials
of the service in Q2 and launch iRadio later this year.
Additional details will be revealed when the service launches.
Back
to Headlines VStar Becomes GoTV, Adds Content, New Execs VStar, the mobile technology and content convergence company behind the 1KTV on-demand mobile TV network, has changed its name to the more obvious GoTV Networks, and redubbed its service GoTV. March has been a rather busy month for the Sherman Oaks, California concern. Earlier this month the company closed a $15 million round of VC funding and brought in a new CEO. This week, it announced additional management changes as well as several new content deals. The most notable of the new content agreements is a deal to add ABC Entertainment programming to the GoTV mobile TV-on-demand offering. The deal calls for GoTV to offer updates, teasers and exclusive content drawn from ABC's prime-time line-up including "Desperate Housewives," "Lost," "Alias," "The Bachelor," "The Bachelorette," "Boston Legal," "NYPD Blue" and "America's Home Videos." It will also feature updates and summaries from ABC's daytime soap opera programming as well as on-demand access to select content from gabfests "The Jimmy Kimmel Show" and "The View." ABC Mobile content on GoTV will also include ABC News on Demand. Additionally, GoTV launched "TwinsTV," a new mobile channel hosted by the famous "Coors Twins" Diane and Elaine Klimaszewski. The twins are supposed to provide a "unique twins'-eye view" into celebrity news, music, movies and more. The company also unveiled PurePhat, the first mobile TV channel focusing solely on the hip-hop lifestyle. PurePhat provides the latest hip-hop news, music, videos and more, all dedicated to the urban lifestyle. PurePhat will debut on the GoTV service on April 1. GoTV is available in the US to subscribers of Sprint, Nextel and Cingular/AT&T Wireless. As for the executive ranks, GoTV named Elizabeth Brooks, former senior VP of business development at Buy.com, as its new senior VP of marketing. Brooks is charged with managing the development of strategic relationships and leading all marketing initiatives and brand strategy for the company. GoTV also appointed Thomas
Ellsworth, former executive VP of marketing and corporate
development for Jamdat Mobile, as chief strategy officer. In
his new role, Ellsworth will direct the company's business
development efforts. Back
to Headlines Sprint Adds Video Content, Multimedia Phone Sprint made a slew of announcements this week relating to its Sprint PCS Multimedia Services offerings, including new content and a new phone as well as the news that several ringtones and screensavers have gone "gold" and "platinum." The Content Initially, the video ringers will only be available on the Sanyo MM-5600 multimedia phone. They will be accessible on future multimedia phones as they emerge. Sprint also added video screensavers on select multimedia handsets so customers can personalize phone screens with videos that play each time they open their phone. They can also assign videos to individual callers in their phonebooks. The telco plans to add movie, comedy and sports clips as video ringers in the near future. Video ringers are $3 each and video screensavers cost $2.50 a piece to download. Sprint also deepened its partnership with digital music provider Music Choice Under the new deal, when customers purchase the Music Choice channel, =offered as part of Sprint PCS Vision Multimedia Services, they also get a daily "Play of the Day" music video. The Music Choice offering on Sprint PCS is $5.95 a month and already offers music news, artist interviews and six commercial-free audio music channels. Another enhancement to Sprint PCS Multimedia Services is CelebTalk from Versaly Entertainment, a video application that offers the latest interviews from the hottest Hollywood celebrities and directors, music artists and sports stars. It costs $4.99 a month. The Sprint PCS Multimedia Services include: - Sprint TV Channel. Similar to a "basic cable" package for mobile handsets, it provides a variety of content from NBC Mobile, Fox Sports, ABC News Now, Discovery Channel, The Weather Channel, Comedy Time and more. Sprint uses the MobiTV application from Idetic for the TV content and technology. -Preview Channel. Free to PCS Vision customers, this channel lets users sample programming from all available channels before subscribing. -Free Channels. Periodically, Sprint PCS Vision customers will have the option to view free content, such as movie trailers from 20th Century Fox. - Available Channel Options. In addition to Sprint TV, customers have the choice of subscribing to individual channels from an expanding list of brands for more in-depth content, including CNN, Cartoon Network, Music Choice, AccuWeather and E! Entertainment All content is developed by the provider and sent to subscribers as = frequently as needed in order to ensure they receive the most up-to-date news and information. The Phone The new MM-535 from LG Mobile Phones is the fifth multimedia handset from Sprint. It boasts a built-in media player and dual speakers with 3D sound for premium audio quality as well as a mini SD card to play MP3 and AAC music files. The MM-535 by LG is one of those new handsets that slides open to reveal the keypad rather than unfold. It has an integrated 1.3-megapixel camera with built-in flash and camcorder functionality for taking pictures and videos, a large 262k-color screen and support for 3D graphics. It also has a built-in speakerphone. The handset offers support for Picture Mail, Sprint PCS Video Mail, text messaging and video ringers as well. The MM-535 by LG will retail for $379.99, or $229.99 after rebate, with a two-year agreement. The 'Awards' - Sprint and Sony BMG Music said that R&B artist Usher has gone "Platinum" on the enhanced Sprint Nationwide PCS Network, with fans having downloaded more than a million Music Tones from Usher's "Confessions" album. Music Tones from the Grammy-winning album include "My Boo" and "Burn." - Music Tones from R&B artist Ciara's album "Goodies" and Destiny's Child's album "Destiny Fulfilled" have gone "Gold," with more than 500,000 Music Tones purchased from each. These include Ciara's "1-2 Step," "Goodies," "Oh" and "Pick up the Phone" and Destiny's Child's "Lose My Breath," "Soldier" and "T-Shirt." Usher joins Sony BMG artist Beyonce in the million-ringers-sold category. Lil Flip and Petey Pablo were the first two artists to sell more than 500,000 ringers to Sprint PCS Vision customers. - Sprint announced the first "platinum" screensaver. PCS Vision customers have purchased more than a million screensavers of MAXIM Models, provided by Airborne Entertainment. - Four other screensavers have gone "gold," with more than 500,000 purchases each: -BlingPix screensavers from LANA/BlingTones, which feature iced-out names, letters and lingo; -Devil Art screen savers, part of the Evil Kid brand, which feature titles such as "Devil Girl in Swimsuit" and "Handsome Devil," provided by Airborne Entertainment; - Socially Hazardous, a popular sticker brand, with popular expressions such as "High Roller" and "Beautiful & Single," provided by Airborne Entertainment; - Graffiti screensavers, which
depict authentic, colorful graffiti-style art, provided by
Airborne Entertainment. In-Fusio Creating Wireless-to-Web Neopets App In a move that's guaranteed to have parents keeping a close eye on their kids' cell phone bills, mobile games publisher In-Fusio has signed a multiyear deal to extend the virtual world of Neopets.com to mobile phones worldwide. Neopets is an online community where members create and care for virtual pets and interact with other members and their Neopets. The site claims some 25 million members worldwide and generates more than seven billion page views per month. Under the deal, In-Fusio will
create the first wireless-to-Web application of its kind,
giving players full access to the Neopets online world from
their mobile phones. Once connected to the Neopets site from a
cell phone, players can manage their accounts, buy and sell
virtual goods, explore, play mini-games and care for their
various pets. "The mobile version of Neopets will not only expand the online community to cell phones, but in fact be the first application of its kind, allowing mobile players to access an existing online persistent world," said In-Fusio North America CEO Craig Holland. "In-Fusio is working to close the gap between wireless and the Web very quickly, and the Neopets application will be the first glimpse into the future of mobile entertainment." The In-Fusio mobile Neopets
application will be available in Q3 through wireless carriers
worldwide. Back
to Headlines Verizon Wireless To Offer 'Simple Life' Mobisodes "The Simple Life," the outrageous reality series that introduced TV viewers to heiresses Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, is getting its own mobile spin-off of sorts. Verizon Wireless is launching original one-minute "mobisodes" drawn from "The Simple Life: Interns," the current season of the Fox series. Although based on the TV show, the mobisodes were produced specifically for wireless phones and feature original material not previously seen on TV. The mobile "Simple Life" will be available exclusively to subscribers to the Verizon Wireless V CAST 3G wireless broadband multimedia service. The mobile operator has been offering video clip previews of upcoming broadcast episodes since the show premiered in January. Fans of the show will be able to buy the first eight mobisodes on April 6. After that, two new mobisodes will be available each week, in conjunction with the airing of the TV show. "The Simple Life:
Interns" mobisodes will cost 99 cents each.
Back
to Headlines WiderThan Debuts Mobile Music Platform WiderThan, a Seoul-based mobile Internet solutions provider, has come to market with a platform that lets mobile operators offer complete music services. The so-called WiderMusic Service Platform is supposed to enable mobile providers to offer consumers a music service that works over both wired and wireless networks anywhere, any time and on any connected device. The integrated platform delivers a range of services including ringtones, ringback tones, music-on-demand - both downloads and streaming - and music videos. The company says the platform can grow to support new music services as they emerge. WiderThan worked closely with record labels and mobile operators when developing the WiderMusic platform and came up with an end-to-end solution that supports content lifecycle management - from license management to content/service creation to service delivery and feedback analysis. The platform supports multiple DRM standards and is compliant with Microsoft Windows Media DRM and OMA 2.0. Separately, WiderThan said that
it has fully absorbed the Ztango name under the WiderThan
umbrella. The company acquired Reston, Virginia-based Ztango,
a provider of wireless messaging and multimedia solutions,
October. Back
to Headlines Mobile TV network MobiTV is expanding its relationship with MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM), the interactive media arm of Major League Baseball, with a new, exclusive three-year agreement. Now, instead of baseball fans belting out "take me out to the ball game," you might hear them singing "take me out to the cell phone." For the 2004 baseball season, MobiTV, a service of Berkeley, California-based Idetic, and MLBAM offered the Mobi-MLB Gameday Audio channels, which let subscribers listen live to every game on their cell phone, choosing from each team's home or away feed. Now, the two have added a mobile video channel that will let fans watch live, full-game video streams of MLB games on their cell phones as well. The Mobi-MLB service also offers video highlights, game photos and stories, live division standings, pitching and hitting stats, live box scores, screensavers, ringtones and team logo wallpapers. Similar to cable and satellite broadcast models, live video broadcasts of MLB games will be subject to standard blackout restrictions that will be implemented in conjunction with the rollout of carrier location-based services later this year. The two expect to launch the
new service across most major US wireless carriers in time for
this season's opening day on April 3. Back
to Headlines AOL Adds Mobile Pictures, Radio and More At the CTIA Wireless show in New Orleans this week America Online showed off a new suite of mobile services designed to bring more of the company's content and services to cell phones and PDAs. "Our new mobile services provide consumers with exciting new ways to enjoy their digital lifestyles and get more done while on the go," said Himesh Bhise, VP and general manager, AOL Mobile. "We are making popular AOL Web brands more accessible to millions of people using small mobile screens." The new apps include Instant Pictures feature for both AOL members and other folks who use the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) service, new MapQuest mobile services and new "premium" mobile services including You've Got Pictures, Radio@AOL, AOL CityGuide and Moviefone. The "Instant Pictures" feature for Mobile AIM service. This lets AIM users send pictures from their desktop AIM client to friends' cell phones on any mobile device. It also lets recipients respond by sharing their own photos. The company is working with carriers and third-party developers to deliver next-generation mobile AIM clients that incorporate the Instant Pictures feature. These future versions will let users initiate and reply to Instant Picture messages by simply inserting a picture into the AIM conversation. Recipients see a thumbnail image of the picture on their mobile AIM screen that they can click to expand. The new mobile MapQuest services are additions to the popular MapQuest Mobile and its Send to Phone feature. First up is the "MapQuest Find Me" service, which uses GPS-enabled phones to help consumers pinpoint their locations on their phones, share their location with others via text messaging, find nearby locations, and get maps and directions. Second is the "MapQuest Traffic" service that provides live traffic data for 90 US metropolitan areas. Drivers can get up-to-date traffic information through their mobile phones so that they can plan alternate routes based on real-time information. Launched in January, MapQuest Mobile lets subscribers access maps and directions from their cell phones. The "Send to Phone" feature lets users send maps and directions from the MapQuest.com Web site to their mobile phone. AOL also launched a new-and-improved mobile portal, which provides access to all the mobile AOL applications including mail, AIM, news, sports and weather. The upgraded portal will also feature new premium mobile services including: -You've Got Pictures. Allows AOL members to access and browse their stored pictures anytime, from anywhere. They'll also be able to download, share and print their pictures, turning their mobile phones into personal media centers. -Radio@AOL. Folks with media-enabled phones will have access to the online radio service's 200+ stations of music, news, sports and talk. They can also access preset stations and view album art as well as artist and song information directly from their mobile devices. -CityGuide. Users can search and browse information on more than 317 markets, including 13 million dining and entertainment venues and more than a million events. -Moviefone. Provides access to show times for more than 31,000 movie screens across the US as well as the ability to purchase movie tickets from mobile devices. Users can also check cast information, top box office performers and movie synopses and reviews. The new AOL mobile services are
available through the company's wireless carrier partners. The
applications, available on a monthly subscription basis, are
accessible via WAP or can be downloaded to Java and BREW
handsets. Back
to Headlines InfoSpace Mobile Offers Ringers from Universal Films Wireless content provider InfoSpace Mobile, Universal Studios Consumer Products Group and Corbis, which hosts a vast image library, have all teamed up to offer consumers mobile content based on Hollywood movies past and present. The new InfoSpace Mobile ScreenTones audio and video ringers mix art, technology and commerce to deliver a variety of content to mobile consumers. In addition to the ScreenTones, the trio is also providing mobile operators with ringback tones and animated screensavers and wallpapers from popular Universal movies. "Everybody has favorite
lines and scenes from the movies," said InfoSpace Mobile
VP of content and publishing Mark Levy. "This
relationship allows us to deliver those cinematic moments as
ScreenTones to mobile users." Back
to Headlines Billboard Launches Mobile Service Billboard, the magazine of record for the music industry, has turned to mobile content creator and distributor Mforma to deliver a wide array of mobile music services under the Billboard brand. The two forged a long-term, exclusive partnership to develop Billboard Mobile, a multimedia music discovery application that's integrated with the Billboard.com Web site. As is the case with Billboard.com, Billboard Mobile will offer a bit of free content and make the bulk of it available only to paying subscribers. Billboard Mobile will let users browse through the Billboard singles charts - including ringtones - for free. They'll also be able to find and download ringtones and purchase CDs. Subscribers will gain access to artist and info, headlines and full feature articles with images, music reviews, event times and locations, trivia and games. The service will launch in
North America in April. Back
to Headlines ******************************** Sony Delays European PSP Launch Sony has delayed the European launch of its PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld gaming system, perhaps by as much as several months, according to Reuters Apparently, the company wants to make sure it can fill orders in the =US where it'll launch the PSP on March 24. It expects to sell one million PSPs at the US launch. "It's been deferred. We were originally hoping for an end of fiscal year (March 31) launch, but now that's not going to be the case," a Sony spokesman told Reuters "It is likely to be a matter of a few months rather than a =few weeks - it's a matter of allocation." The unit is expected to sell for $450 in the states, £200-£300 in the UK. Sony has already launched the PSP in Japan. Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal's technology reviewer, told CNBC TV viewers that the PSP rated high marks for gaming and playing movies but poor marks for music and photos. He said it has "great industrial design" and is a bit pricey. Mossberg doesn't believe the PSP is likely to replace the iPod - due to lack of any significant internal storage such as a hard disk - or the portable DVD player - any time soon. The 32MB Sony proprietary
Memory Stick that comes with the PSP will only hold about
20-25 photos or 10-11 songs, making the PSP unacceptable for
those uses. The features the PSP most needs to make it a
complete digital media device, according to Mossberg, are a
hard disk and a PC connection. He cited those two shortcomings
as examples of Sony's inability to get its digital media act
together. All in all, Mossberg expects Sony to sell lots of
PSPs for its videogaming capabilities.
Back
to Headlines Disney to Offer Films for Sony's PSP Disney's Buena Vista Home
Entertainment division will release several movies in the
Universal Media Disc (UMD) format that Sony's new PlayStation
Portable (PSP) uses. Sony, owner of the Columbia Tristar and
MGM studios, and Lions Gate Entertainment had previously said
that they would release films on the UMD.
Back
to Headlines Video Without Boundaries Lands CompUSA Seal CompUSA has agreed to start selling Video Without Boundaries' (VWB) MediaREADY 4000 boxes in all its 220 retail stores. Most importantly for VWB, the deal will provide consumers, on a large scale, their first opportunity to see the $449 VWB broadband-connected digital media set-top box. CompUSA will have the VWB box connected to 17-inch LCD TVs in the store, playing a specially produced DVD that shows off the MediaREADY's functions. The MediaREADY 4000 is a set-top unit that connects to the PC and combines the functions of a DVD/CD player with a media jukebox, e-mail, Internet surfing, karaoke and gaming. It connects to the Internet to download movies, TV shows and other entertainment, information and education videos. VWB gives the purchaser two ways to connect to a network and the Web - a PCMCIA card slot on the front and a conventional Ethernet connector on the rear. Connections to CE devices are through RCA jacks, S Video and component video. The box runs an open source version of the Mozilla browser and VWB expects to upgrade shortly to the suddenly popular Firefox browser. Since late December, CompUSA has been testing the MediaREADY in 20 of its stores. VWB says that the box gives CompUSA customers an alternative to a $1,500-$2,500 digital media PC for downloading content off the Net, something VWB says consumers are asking for. Until now its only other major retailer has been TigerDirect. VWB president and CEO Jeffrey Harrell said that CompUSA is a household name in both consumer electronics and computing, making it a "great venue for this in-store rollout." He said the deal not only puts the MediaREADY 4000 box on store shelves in a bricks-and-mortar environment, but "also gives consumers a chance to experience the unit for themselves." The MediaREADY 4000 also connects home networks with televisions and incorporates a hard drive for storage of multimedia files including movies, music and photos. It can record, store and play back digital entertainment, either from the Internet or other media source. Features include a full-sized wireless keyboard, 5.1 Surround Sound, picture-in-picture capability, karaoke microphone jack and wireless remote control. It uses a TV-centric Web browser and an open source design. Connectivity options include Ethernet 10/100 wired and wireless connections as well as USB 2.0 and 1394 FireWire connectors. Two New Models Coming VWB is bringing two new models to market in April. The MediaREADY 5000 will have DVR functions. A Flyboy model the size of a desktop calculator with a 3.5-inch LCD screen will hold 80 hours of video. Connect a TV to the VWB box, the VWB box and a PC to a network and the users gains lots of desirable functions. Using the VWB wireless keyboard, the user can play movies, music and home videos stored on the PC, assuming they are in one of the formats that MediaREADY supports. The reverse is also possible - playing content on the VWB-connected TV that is stored on the PC - albeit with more restrictions due to copy protection. VWB is also counting on a growing library of independently produced content that is downloadable off the Net. Adult content, as might be expected, leads the popularity list. "How-to's" such as vegetarian cooking, surfing, skateboarding and on and on will each have their niche audiences. The VWB boxes can also be connected to the stereo to play music and other audio. With some 40 million American homes now having high-speed Internet access, VWB thinks the market is ready for such a device - something other than pricey entertainment PCs. VWB says that the MediaREADY 4000 will be "the one-stop entertainment and communications choice for the new age of digital technology." The Phone Companies and 'The New Age of Digital Technology' The world's phone companies want to be at the center of "the new age of digital technology." They would seem to be the most logical outfits to sell large quantities of VWB boxes. They need some broadband-based entertainment box to differentiate themselves from the cable and satellite TV companies that are encroaching on their turf. If the phone companies spend billions to wire up the world with fiber optic cable but then only offer the usual list of TV channels, where's the advantage. Surely the phone companies need some Internet-based advantage to differentiate their entertainment-education-information service from the cable and satellite TV services. A VWB box or an Akimbo service would seem to be called for. The phone companies might want to consider that, by the time they get around to offering TV services, millions of cable and satellite TV subscribers are going to have DVRs filled with favorite and yet-to-be-watched movies and TV shows, beloved music, treasured family photos and "heirloom" home videos. Convincing families to give all that up is going to be as difficult as it's been to convince companies to switch from Windows to another operating system. VWB says its strategy is to sell to consumers through retail stores rather than through the phone or cable TV companies. An earlier digital media pioneer, TiVo, found that the retail chain was not its most productive distribution channel. VWB executive VP David Novak says that the phone companies have to start their TV ventures with a low-cost analog set-top box because over half of cable TV subscribers still get only the basic cable TV service. A VWB box would be overkill, he says, for the phone companies as an entry-level product. Still and all, the phone
companies will need something very significant to entice cable
and satellite TV subscribers to chuck out their content-filled
DVRs. Back
to Headlines Samsung Unveils Mobile Phone with 3GB Hard Drive Samsung is coming to market with another first in a mobile phone - a 3GB hard disk drive. Last year the electronics giant introduced the first 1.5GB Smartphone. The SGH-i300 features the company's new plug-and-play "Files-to-go" technology, which lets the phone function as a removable hard drive. This nifty feature means that anyone from businesspeople to students can use the thing to transfer files to and from their PCs as well as store files in any format - documents, spreadsheets, music, pictures and more. The three-gig drive can hold up to 1,000 songs. The phone, which uses Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system, can play music downloaded from online music stores as well as the new over-the-air download services that mobile operators are starting to offer.
Samsung's 3GB SGH-i300 Additional features include stereo speakers and scroll-wheel navigation that's supposed to make it easy to search through the files. It plays MP3, WMA, AAC, AACplus and OGG music files. It also has a 1.3-megapixel camera, a 262k-color TFT display and supports MPEG-4 video recording. Samsung has not announced
pricing or availability. Back
to Headlines Motorola's iTunes Phone a No Show Motorola did not show the iTunes version of its cell phones in its booth at Germany's CeBIT tech expo as planned. The phones are supposed to download and play tracks from Apple's iTunes Music Store. Motorola spokeswoman Monica Rohleder told Forbes.com the company remains in discussions with a number of wireless carriers regarding the first iTunes phone and will announce it "when it's ready to go," close to its expected release time this summer. "Absolutely nothing went wrong," she said. "It was solely our decision to hold off the announcement." There had been speculation that
cell phone operators objected to being cut out of the iTunes
revenue stream. Forbes.com reported that Volker Haebel,
marketing director of Motorola's German division, said a
launch could come in the US within a few weeks. Reuters reported that the delay
was due to Apple's policy of not showing a product until it's
ready to ship. Motorola typically previews products in order
to drum up sales interest. "The first thing you're seeing
here is a merger of two different industries with different
ideas of launching products," Ron Garriques, president of
Motorola's mobile phone division told analysts and reporters
at a news conference at the CTIA wireless show in New Orleans.
"Steve Jobs' perspective is that you launch a product on
Sunday and sell it on Monday," he said.
Back
to Headlines 132m Portable MP3 Players To Ship in 2009 According to market research
firm iSuppli, the market for portable digital music players is
expected to grow 57% this year, more than doubling in size
over 2004. By 2009, annual sales will grow to 132 million
units, up from 36.8 million last year. Back
to Headlines AOL Rolling Out Entertainment Videos for All MediaPost.com uses an interview with Kevin Conroy, executive VP and COO of AOL Media Networks, to document how AOL has led in online video and audio entertainment in an article called "As Online Video Accelerates, AOL Pushes Content Web-wide" at: http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=28080&Nid=12526&p=242648 AOL once hid such content behind walls so that only paying AOL =subscribers could access it, but is now making the content available to any Internet users in its drive to become an entertainment portal. Among AOL accomplishments mentioned are: -First time a portal streamed a TV show simultaneous with its airing. Warner Bros' "Jack & Bobby" last August beat out Yahoo's stream of Showtime's Fat Actress," shown this month. AOL's stream was limited it its members. -Web-wide on-air/on-Web showing of a full episode of Bravo's "Queer Eye for the Straight Girl," which was Webcast simultaneously with the TV episode and available on-demand for a week. It was streamed 100,000 times during the week. -Web-wide weekly recaps of the ABC's "Desperate Housewives" each Monday following the Sunday night show. Each recap had about 200,000 streams. -Web-wide on-air/on-Web simulcast of complete episodes of Bravo's "Project Greenlight." AOL has already signed up advertisers Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, General Motors, Volvo, Sharp Electronics, and Cadbury Adams' Dentyne. The article says AOL is preparing for a fall launch of a Web-wide - "gateway for what it hopes will be a mother lode of programming content, much of it video-based." Conroy, who the article called "AOL's point man for the Web video and programming strategy," said users who visit the Web-wide site will be rewarded. "We're going to open the front door," he said. Conroy is enthused about the potential for video-on-demand over IP. "People who are worried about TiVo haven't fully appreciated that VoD over IP should be the most attractive alternative to advertising in a TiVo world. And you can't skip the ads with in-stream ads," he said. Conroy previously ran AOL Music
and AOL Entertainment where he launched the company's
successful "Sessions" and "AOL Live"
franchises. Sessions has about four million streams a week.
AOL Live has about a million. Back
to Headlines Quadra Media Licenses TVTonic Direct Spanish-language content aggregator Quadra Media LA has chosen the Wavexpress TVTonic Direct broadband video-caching technology to deliver its content to consumers within the Americas. Quadra Media recently inked a joint development and marketing deal with Endavo deliver its content to network partners and end users via Endavo's managed multicast distribution system. Now it has licensed TVTonic direct to help end users manage the Spanish-language content that is delivered to their broadband-connected PC through a subscription service powered by Quadra Media's content aggregation and delivery platform. The TVTonic Direct video-caching technology delivers DVD-quality content to a PC. Unlike streaming media, which is subject to buffering delays, lost packets and bandwidth bottlenecks, TVTonic delivers the files to the subscriber's PC in the background, taking advantage of unused bandwidth to save the content to the hard disk. When the user wants to view the delivered content, the video starts immediately and can be viewed in high quality on the full screen. Once a consumer subscribes to a content channel, new video is sent every day, week or month, depending on the particular subscription. Each video delivered by TVTonic Direct is pre-programmed with its own automatic file expiration parameters. "Our customers need to be
able to manage their own services - whether they are
subscription services or advertising supported - and
understand the dynamics of the revenues generated," said
Mario Pino, Quadra Media's director of network partner
relations. "In addition to our content partners being
able to manage their subscription and advertising revenues,
the TVTonic Direct Solution provides a powerful reporting
engine that provides our network partners - DSL or cable modem
- the ability to effectively audit their portion of revenues
owed as a result of them supporting the content offerings to
their end-users that are connected to their networks."
Back
to Headlines Thumbdance Channel To Showcase FreemantleMedia Content FreemantleMedia, which produces such hit TV shows as "American Idol," "The Price Is Right" and "Da Ali G Show" among many others, has teamed with mobile entertainment provider Mobliss to launch a variety of programs exclusively for the Mobliss mobile video service, the Thumbdance Channel. The made-for-mobile programs span drama, comedy and reality shows. The deal calls for FreemantleMedia to tap into its worldwide network of content producers to create original programs for the Thumbdance Channel. It will also provide select content from its extensive library of more than 9,000 hours of existing shows. "Baywatch Best Beach Moments" will be the first original program introduced under the agreement. Thumbdance Channel caters to the emerging "tech elite," which Mobliss describes as "a young, hip, savvy demographic snapping up the latest 3G phones and taking advantage of the fastest, most advanced network services." In addition to select
FreemantleMedia content, the Thumbdance Channel also features
an original mobile series from syndicated urban lifestyle show
"Weekend Vibe," animated political parodies from
JibJab and high-impact action sports from Ally Distribution as
well as other original programming. Back
to Headlines iTunes Gets Elvis, Johnny Cash Sun Entertainment Holding
Group, which has the exclusive worldwide rights to more than
8,000 master recordings of Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl
Perkins, Roy Orbison, Conway Twitty, Elvis Presley and others,
has licensed its catalog to Apple Under the non-exclusive
deal, Sun will receive a "=significant" percentage
of revenue for each of its songs downloaded via the iTunes
Music Store. Back
to Headlines Different Rules for US Cablecos & Telcos Rethink Research's technology
guru Peter White, prompted by the Online Reporter article
"FCC Assesses First Internet Blocking Fine," said,
"If Comcast or another cable TV provider wanted to stop
people downloading video files, there is currently no ruling
or law against it. The courts have said that if it happens
there might be a case to create a law. However, since the FCC
classifies cable TV companies as an information service
(although the courts don't), the FCC doesn't regulate the
cable operators and they can do this kind of thing. With no
law or FCC regulation to prevent it, the cable TV services
could even stop Vonage It's only telcos that can't."
Back
to Headlines Cell Phones, Music Converge at CeBIT The convergence of cell phones
and music showed up at Germany's CeBit trade show this week.
Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile were demonstrating cell phones
that download and play music. None, however, use Apple's
iTunes software. Back
to Headlines Telecom guru Andrew Odlyzko
predicts that consumers will download videos like they do
music, not stream it. Broadband guru Dave Burstein of DSL
Prime says that if Odlyzko's prediction is true, then most of
the phone companies' plans based on streaming models will
fail. Back
to Headlines A Growing Consumer Discontent with PCs "Crisis? There is growing
consumer discontent - crisis - with PC performance thanks to
the emerging cottage industries of spyware, malware,
adware.... I mentioned recently that my wife, Kelly, paid
$600+ and a batch of homemade brownies to a man named
"Tech Geek" to find one missing file and to wipe 611
pieces of malware from these pathetic machines. Technically,
the performance has improved, as her poor little abused Intel
systems no longer have to spend so much time processing 611
external users. In our normal rounds, I hear lots of stories
similar to Kelly's. Malware is clogging home PCs. Friends and
their friends are contemplating a shift to a Mac. The
frustration is just building." - Pip Coburn in the
Webzine AlwaysOn Coburn is a managing director and global
technology strategist in the =technology group at Wall Street
firm UBS Investment Research He is responsible for integrating
the research efforts of 120 technology and telecom analysts
worldwide. Back
to Headlines Online Content Purchases Exceed $413m The growth of broadband and
online music services helped entice consumers to spend $413.5
million on online entertainment and lifestyle content last
year - almost double the $217.6 million spent in 2003,
according to an Online Publishers Association report. That
increase marks a huge shift from the year before, when
consumer spending on online entertainment fell 6% from 2002.
Back
to Headlines Telecom Industry in for 'Rapid and Total Restructuring' "This week, at The Voice
on the Net conference, Google execs were apparently holding
closed room discussions with several Net telephone service
providers, according to a report by News.com's Ben Charney. A
day earlier, AOL announced plans to launch a Net telephone
service within the month. So far, the major telcos have
survived the VoIP revolution. But once Google, AOL, and other
800-pound gorilla ISPs get into the game, I foresee a rapid
and total restructuring of the entire telecom industry."
- David Berlind at ZDNet's http://blogs.zdnetcom/BTL/index.php?p=1127 .
Back
to Headlines Apple to Sell 22m iPods This Year Piper Jaffray forecasts Apple
will sell nearly 22 million iPods in 2005, and about 27
million in 2006.Having sold about 10 million iPods so far,
Apple is estimated to have between 60% and 70% of the digital
music player market. According to Reuters, Wall Street expects
Apple profits to grow 24.8% annually over the long-term.
Reuters also reports that while Apple sells iPods at good
profit margins, its iTunes download service runs at about
break-even, even though Apple has sold more than 300 million
downloads to date. Phil Leigh, analyst with Inside Digital
Media, expects that in the future downloads will be more
important to Apple. "Ten years from now, Apple will be
making more money out of iTunes than from iPods," said
Leigh. "The record labels will be willing to sell at
lower prices because the volumes will be so high and the
inherent profitability will be higher."
Back
to Headlines Intel Inside for Interpublic Ad Agencies Ding! Intel this week named agencies that are part of Interpublic's largest division, McCann Worldgroup, to handle its $300 million global brand marketing account.
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