TiVo, switched video, Clicker and irony

Let me begin with a confession: as a passionate advocate of usability in consumer electronics, I am a long-time TiVo fan, so much so that its availability has dictated my choice of video content service. First DirecTV, then Comcast when they made available the Series 3 integrated with the cable service (although the CableCard installation was a nightmare of epic proportions...).

Over the last several days there were, however, four related news items, some of which seem tinged with irony:

• today, its judgement against EchoStar and DishTV for $200 million was upheld - unsurprisingly EchoStar plans to appeal - vindicating the value of the key innovation that TiVo provides
• a couple of days ago, TiVo announced its Series 4 devices: demonstrating the importance of 'over the top' video, its new UI integrates this seamlessly into the overall user experience

TiVo Premiere

• a few days earlier, Clicker, a service that in some ways appears inspired by TiVo, aiming to bring a TiVo-like experience to web TV garnered $11m in funding

Clicker

• the explosion in diversity of content and the growth of time-shifting and now place-shifting is forcing cable providers towards switched video, which in turn threatens TiVo's whole technical architecture because of its inability to communicate upstream

So, what does this mean? Does TiVo win the IP battle and lose the platform war? Do the innovators it inspired arise to eclipse it? Whither linear TV and OTT content?

(Parenthetically, the new UI is Flash-based, but then TiVo does control the hardware platform)

Point: counterpoint - the pro's and con's of mass media, bloggers and 'citizen journalism'

There are two fascinating and and sharply contrasting posts today that illustrate both the pro's and con's of mass media, bloggers and so-called 'citizen journalism'.

First, from 'The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs' entitled 'Why the mainstream media is dying':

Every once in a while you get to see a mainstream outlet cover a story right alongside a blog, so you can put them up against each other and see why one was so much better than the other. This week TechCrunch and the New York Times (photo) provided just such a lesson.

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On Oct. 31 TechCrunch broke a big story called “Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem of Hell” about how Zynga was making money by selling scam ads.

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After all this, we woke up Saturday to find a story in the New York Times, also about Zynga (and other Facebook game companies) with the headline, “Virtual Goods Start Bringing Real Paydays.” The Times put two reporters on the knob-polisher, and somehow they managed to interview Pincus, and to quote him — and yet theyincluded not a single word about the scammy ads.

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Meanwhile, Arrington, still digging, blasted again on Saturday night, reporting that sleazy ads had popped up again on Zynga, despite promises that they would be taken down.

Um, New York Times? If you guys are still wondering why people are dropping their subscriptions and getting their news from blogs instead of you — this is why.

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And to all those people who go around wringing their hands and saying what are we going to do when the “real newspapers” all die and we have to get our news from Gawker and HuffPo and TechCrunch? Friends, I think we’re going to be just fine.

The videos that illustrate this are fascinating; it's hard to imagine how print would ever do this justice (note: the first one begins with audio only).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PhKRCkbX9A&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

The second video shows Mark Pincus of Zynga fessing up to these tactics, illustrating 'mutually assured embarrassment' (a phrase Paul Saffo was using at least a couple of years ago, and which I came across in a recent Pew Internet Project on the Future of the Internet, not to be confused with Jonathan Zittrain's skeptical and dystopian vision).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7YaVVpK1G4&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

Second, on TechCrunch, Paul Carr lambasted one of the 'citizen journalists' for their prurient reporting on the Fort Hood tragedy:

I’d probably feel slightly smug, if I didn’t feel so sick.

Smug that after two weeks of me suggesting that social media might not be an unequivocally Good Thing in terms of privacy and human decency, the news has delivered the perfect example to support my view.

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And yet, the first news and analysis out of the base didn’t come from the experts. Nor did it come from the 24-hour news media, or even from dedicated military blogs – but rather from the Twitter account of one Tearah Moore, a soldier from Linden, Michigan who is based at Fort Hood, having recently returned from Iraq.

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That last twitpic link was particularly amazing: it showed a cameraphone image – of a wounded soldier arriving at the hospital on a gurney – taken by Moore from inside the hospital. Unsurprisingly, Moore’s coverage was quickly picked up by bloggers and mainstream media outlets alike, something that she actively encouraged by tweeting to friends that they should pass her phone number to the press so she could tell them the truth, rather than the speculative bullshit that was hitting the wires.

There was just one problem: Moore’s information was bullshit too.

While I laud Paul Carr's ethical concerns in this particular case, I think that Fake Steve's point about the power of new media explains one of the reasons why mass media's business model is doomed. Restraint is not enough in the face of failing to do your core job as well as competing alternatives. And the core job is reporting (at least as much as it's advertising).

Obsolete technology: On sale now!

After posting "Everything is changing" yesterday, I came across this FYE store on my commute home:



Obsolete Technology: On Sale Now!

I wouldn't want to be selling CDs and DVDs right now. Particularly from a brick-and-mortar storefront. Content is rapidly digitizing and physical media are bulky, expensive, inefficient, and inconvenient.

Why carry that zippered case full of CDs or DVDs when you can fit your entire media library on something the size of a key fob? Eventually, why carry even a key fob or thumb drive or media player when your car or smartphone or computer will just sync your library from the cloud and everything will be conveniently available when and where you need it?

I wouldn't want to be selling books, either.

I love books. The physical, tactile, stretch-out-on-a-couch-by-the-fire-with-my-dog-at-my-feet experience of books. In spite of this, I am considering a Kindle or a Nook. If you read a lot of books, an eReader's simplicity (download rather than order online or drive to a bookstore) and economics (significant savings per title at only $9.99 for a new release) are compelling. And although only a small fraction of readers have adopted the Kindle, these lead users are already having a disruptive impact. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), a small fraction of readers represents a very large proportion of book purchases. In fact, for books available on the Kindle, the Kindle represents ~35% of book sales. This is less than 1% of the addressable market representing 35% of unit sales! If this trend continues and eReaders gain in popularity, then bookstores will eventually go the way of video rental stores and CD/DVD stores. And dinosaurs.

Guitar Hero 3 on Heroes premier

For years we (and others) have been discussing how TV shows get financed in a time-shifted and place-shifted world.  If viewers can use TiVo to skip the ads, where does the money come from?  If I cut my coax and go with iTunes or Roku or Vudu, is there enough money left to fund HBO, ESPN, CNBC, etc?

Will we really be lost without Lost?

One possible solution is increased product placements à la James Bond.  There are literally hundreds of examples to choose from, but a personal favorite of mine is the BMW chase scene in Tomorrow Never Dies:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smvR7ocyNkM]

In the season premier of Heroes, we saw an aggressive move in this direction by NBC.  An entire scene is dedicated to Claire and her friends playing Guitar Hero 3.  Another scene gets weird:  Hiro and Ando are standing in front of cardboard cut-outs of themselves and a giant cardboard smartphone with the Sprint logo emblazoned across the top – an ad within an ad within the TV show.

Look for more of this to come in future episodes of Heroes and other high production value TV.