NPD Survey Says Watching Online Video on TVs a Growing Global Trend

  • TV screens are becoming an increasingly popular way to consume online video — a medium that’s grown exponentially in the last three years.
  • According to a study by NPD, about 18 percent of 14,000 users surveyed are accessing online video on TVs on a daily basis while around 25 percent access it several times a week. Movies are driving much of that growth, reports TechCrunch.
  • The rise in online video viewing on TV has been made possible by televisions with built-in Internet as well as game consoles such as the Xbox and set-top boxes that link up with broadband-enabled on-demand services.
  • “China is coming out as the most online-video-friendly country at the moment,” notes the post. “China’s urban users beat every other country surveyed, across every device. This may be down to simple user behavior, but it’s also, NPD says, because Chinese users can access a lot more video content online than they can from domestic broadcasters and pay TV providers.”
  • “Online content is mostly viewed on computers or mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones, but TVs are increasingly becoming devices of choice for consumers, particularly since an increasing numbers of sets have either built-in connectivity or can be connected to the Internet via a peripheral device such as a connected Blu-ray player or set top box, among others,” said Riddhi Patel, NPD DisplaySearch research director, in a statement.

Freemium Model Pros and Cons: Not the Best Strategy for All Businesses

  • Is the freemium strategy too costly for some businesses? According to the Wall Street Journal, giving away products for free to build a user base “is turning out to be a costly trap, leaving them with higher operating costs and thousands of freeloaders.”
  • While selling advertising was once the most common way for a digital start-up to make money, the freemium model has taken off as companies like Dropbox, LinkedIn and Skype have implemented it successfully.
  • “The freemium approach doesn’t make sense for any business that can’t eventually reach millions of users,” explains the article. “Typically only 1 percent or 2 percent of users will upgrade to a paid product, said David Cohen, founder and CEO of TechStars.”
  • “The strategy also often isn’t effective for businesses whose range of products is limited in scope, because paid users generally expect to get better or different versions of what they’ve already received free of charge,” notes WSJ. “And it rarely makes sense for companies that sell products or services mostly to large businesses. Enterprise clients typically have budgets for buying goods and services, thus, they aren’t as drawn to free products.”
  • Yet the reach of the freemium model is expanding. “About 77 percent of the top 100 grossing mobile apps inApple Inc.’s App Store use a freemium pricing plan, up from just 4 percent in 2010, according to Velti PLC, a mobile advertising and marketing company,” says the article.

Defective by Design Campaign: Foundation Launches DRM-Free Label

  • “Awareness has been spreading among individuals, businesses and other organizations that DRM is a completely unnecessary restriction of freedom, and it drives people away,” claims Defective by Design, a campaign of the Free Software Foundation.
  • The post suggests that going “DRM-free” is becoming increasingly valuable for patrons. To address this, the organization has created a logo to be placed on products, making it easier for consumers to locate legitimate DRM-free products.
  • The label reads: “DRM-Free: All files are provided without restrictive technologies.”
  • “We are excited to already have a list of several first adopters using our DRM-free label,” notes the post. “ClearBits, a BitTorrent distributor of various digital media, much of which is under free culture licenses, is displaying the logo in the footer of each page, and Go Faster Stripe, a distributor of DRM-free DVDs, has the logo on their about page.”
  • “Music sharing sites ccMixter and TuneTrack display the label on each track’s download page while independent record label, Magnatune, uses it on an about page,” adds Defective by Design.
  • The post also includes a list of DRM-free publishers and distributors including Foboko, Momentum Books, O’Reilly Media, Weightless Books, Obooko, Pragmatic Bookshelf and others.

Ultra High Def TV Approved by International Telecommunication Union

  • The new Ultra High Definition Television (UHDTV) format that has 16 times the resolution of current HDTV has been approved by international standards body the International Telecommunication Union, according to Japanese sources and reported by TechWorld.
  • UHDTV will allow “for programming and broadcasting at resolutions of up to 7680 by 4320, along with frame refresh rates of up to 120Hz, double that of most current HDTV broadcasts. The format also calls for a broader palette of colors that can be displayed on screen,” explains the article.
  • This new format was designed and developed in Japan, which is why the country has been pushing hard for international approval.
  • “It is hoped that international adoption will give the country an advantage as television progresses to the next generation,” writes TechWorld. “The standard also includes a smaller layout, which is 3840 by 2160 pixels. The two arrangements are commonly referred to by their horizontal pixel counts, or 8K and 4K.”
  • The same standards will be used in home entertainment sets and public spaces, including screens in movie theaters and sports venues, according to a report posted by the ITU earlier this year.

Location Privacy Act: California Pushes for Warrants in GPS Tracking

  • Last week the California state legislature passed the Location Privacy Act of 2012 (SB-1434), “which would make it mandatory for law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before gathering any GPS or other location-tracking data that a suspect’s cell phone might be sending back to its carrier,” reports Ars Technica.
  • The act passed with strong support from both parties and requires the governor’s signature to be put into law.
  • “But the bill isn’t necessarily a straight-shot to penal code glory: the EFF points out that Governor Jerry Brown vetoed California’s last attempt at enforcing stricter privacy rules in 2011, when he killed a bill that would have prevented police from searching the phones of apprehended suspects without a warrant,” according to the article.
  • The issue was recently in the news after a federal appeals court ruled that law enforcement could track the GPS signal coming from a suspect’s prepaid phone without a warrant.
  • “Privacy advocates questioned the constitutionality of that ruling, which seems to open the door to a world where cellphones can reveal much more information to the wrong people than their users would ever have expected,” concludes Ars Technica.

Is it Time for Web Designers to Consider Phones and Tablets before PCs?

  • It’s a transitional time for websites and mobile devices. As increasing numbers of consumers spend less time on their PCs and more time on their mobile devices, it’s more important than ever for sites to design specifically for such devices.
  • “The problem is that much of the Web is just too overcrowded for tablet displays. When you load up a site on your iPad, you’re often presented with a crush of text, pictures, and videos that are jammed up together. Sites are powered by code that’s too slow and buggy for small devices, they’re stuffed with buttons and links that are too small to hit with a finger, and their pictures don’t look good on super-high-definition tablet displays,” writes Slate.
  • The tablet should now be the first consideration for designers, suggests the article. It’s time to reprioritize and put PC page design behind mobile. “They ought to think of tablets first when they’re creating new sites. Only after building pages for 7- and 9-inch touchscreens should they tweak their sites for desktop browsers.”
  • Because of the simple and often elegant design of tablet pages, columnist Farhad Manjoo believes that the entire Web, traditional and mobile, would be vastly improved if tablet design became the top priority for designers.
  • “Web companies should focus on building a unified experience that can work across every gadget. In an ideal world, the mobile site wouldn’t be an offshoot of the desktop site — the desktop site would be the same as the mobile site, a clean, quick-loading page that looked good on every gadget,” writes Manjoo.

Intel Poised to Enter the Mobile Market with Help of Apple Alumnus

  • Under the guidance of Mike Bell, a rebellious spirit who was hired in 2010 to help Intel become the “premier chip provider in the phone industry,” Intel is on course to break into the mobile industry.
  • “Intel had built its business by predictably releasing increasingly powerful chips that could accomplish ever-more-impressive tasks… That, however, was before the iPhone, the iPad, and Android phones and tablets hijacked the future of computing,” reports Wired. “Unfortunately for Intel, its rivals knew how to build chips for just those kinds of devices.”
  • Thus, Bell was brought on board. “He spent 17 years as an engineer at Apple, where he worked on software for the Mac and the original iPhone before decamping to Palm, where he led hardware development of its well-received but ill-fated Pre and Pixi devices,” according to the article.
  • “Bell’s phones had the processing power that consumers had come to expect from Intel,” reports Wired. They were above average by almost every measure — energy efficiency, display, call quality, and processor speed. They were no match for the iPhone — these were just the first round of Intel phones, after all, and were meant to be modest — but they were a good value.”
  • Bell exceeded the expectations of building a low-powered chip for mobile. He’s also created a phone to put it in.
  • “This spring, after an intense two-year sprint, the first consumer phones to use Intel processors went on sale in India, China, and Europe. By the end of this year, Motorola Mobility, now owned by Google, is expected to launch its own Intel-powered phone,” notes the article.

Apple Granted Podcast Subscription Patent, Does Not Own Podcasting

  • Apple was granted 29 new patents this week — among them are patents for its podcast subscription service and three iPod designs (iPod Classic and fourth and fifth generation iPod nano).
  • Apple’s podcast subscription service was added to its repertoire in 2005. The invention is titled “Techniques and systems for supporting podcasting,” which “pertains to improved podcasts and techniques that facilitate their use,” according to Patently Apple.
  • Those techniques include creating, publishing, hosting, accessing, subscribing, managing, transferring and/or playing podcasts.
  • According to the post: “Some are reporting that Apple’s patent win means that they now own the word ‘Podcasting.’ Our report doesn’t reflect that whatsoever. This isn’t a trademark win for Apple.”
  • “Apple credits Anne Jones, Thomas Dowdy, Jeffrey Robbin, Mike Wiese and Stephen Davis as the inventors of granted patent 8,245,924 which was originally filed in Q2 2009 and refilled as a continuation patent in Q3 2011,” writes Patently Apple.

Connectify Dispatch Connects Multiple Networks for Speed and Reliability

  • With Connectify Dispatch, you can use any combination of “Wi-Fi, 3G/4G mobile broadband, or wired connections, and Dispatch intelligently balances all of your traffic for faster streaming, browsing, and BitTorrent downloads. In fact, the more networks you have, the faster you’ll go,” according to the Connectify blog.
  • Verizon recently lifted its ban on tethering applications for smartphones, allowing for Connectivity engineers to give it a try.
  • “But instead of just using the tethered phone to get on the Internet when Wi-Fi isn’t working, they decided to use it in addition to every other unsecured Wi-Fi network located around our office building,” explains Alex Gizis, Connectify founder and CEO.
  • The team simultaneously hooked up 7 USB Wi-Fi cards, a USB 3G modem, a 4G tethered smartphone and an Ethernet connection with “impressive” results.
  • Check out the 3-minute video that details how the team joined 10 “connections simultaneously, for one super-fast connection.”

Embracing the Digital Age: Five Ways Hollywood Should Distribute Movies

  • In his Scientific American column this month, David Pogue suggests five ways Hollywood can fight piracy and promote its products successfully by more effectively embracing the digital age of content distribution.
  • 1) “Include DVD extras.” Things like deleted scenes, commentary, behind-the-scenes features and more can be found nowhere else but with the DVD itself, encouraging purchase or hard-copy rentals. “Not to mention subtitles and captions — important options for millions of viewers,” adds Pogue.
  • 2) “Offer a reasonable viewing period.” Give online renters the chance to finish the movie in a timely fashion. Pogue suggests viewers should have at least 27 hours, providing the ability to finish the movie the next night if sleepiness or other circumstances cut off their viewing the first night.
  • 3) “Eliminate the starting time. You have to start watching a movie within 30 days of renting it. Okay, this isn’t a big deal — most of the time you rent a movie because you want to start watching right away — but what’s the need for the 30-day restriction? If we paid for it, we should be able to watch it whenever.”
  • 4) “Eliminate the ‘release window’ concept.” When a movie’s theatrical run ends, it is rolled out to other outlets (pay-per-view, DVD, HBO, etc.) in a formulaic way that Hollywood believes holds the best financial yield. But as Pogue aptly notes, “during each window none of the other movie sources are making any money for Hollywood.” He thinks the movie should be available to all outlets at one time.
  • 5) “When it’s buyable, it should be rentable.” A movie will often be put on sale online for more money before it’s available for rent, thus missing revenue from renters excited for a new release.
  • “Listen up, Hollywood: Nobody ever went out of business offering a good product for sale at a reasonable price with an eye toward pleasing the customer,” concludes Pogue. “You should try it some time.”

A Look at Kickstarter Projects: The Pros and Cons of Crowdfunding

  • Kickstarter launched four years ago. It began as a clever idea intended to generate crowdfunding for projects proposed by designers, artists, philanthropists, etc. It has since grown into a very successful enterprise.
  • “The service, which takes a 5 percent cut of the funding that pours in, has exploded. Along with scores of modestly backed projects — from $100 for a puppet-show adaptation of “King Kong” to one woman’s $15,000 quest to develop a bionic eye for herself — piecemeal investment has yielded multi-million-dollar hits,” details the Wall Street Journal.
  • But as this article notes, while there are plenty of wonderful examples of success on the site, there are just as many examples of “ill-conceived projects.” Many of these, both good and bad, revolve around tech product design. The article lists examples of the best and worst.
  • One good example is the Pebble watch, which links to your smartphone and receives incoming texts and updates via its e-ink face. A bad example is the now-famous i+ Case, an iPhone case that ended up interfering with cell reception and Wi-Fi connections.
  • The good and bad examples should remind us that sites like Kickstarter are investment tools for proposed products and services, sometimes yielding quality and other times not.

U.S. Q2 Spending: Seventh Consecutive Quarter of Double-Digit Growth

  • According to numbers from comScore, e-commerce sales reached a high $43.2 billion in the second quarter. That’s up 15 percent from a year ago.
  • “The quarter marked America’s seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, as consumers get even more comfortable spending online and having products show up on their front porches,” reports AllThingsD.
  • Amazon is, of course, growing right along with the rise of e-commerce. “The big-box retailer of the Web said that in the second quarter, it grew 32 percent if you take away the impact of foreign exchange,” notes the article.
  • Online auction and shopping site eBay also experienced a significant increase, jumping 23 percent, while brick-and-mortar stores continue to struggle.
  • However, comScore’s numbers do not include mobile sales, which saw a “staggering surge,” according to eBay CEO John Donahoe.
  • According to the report, the top-performing online products included: “Digital content and subscriptions, consumer electronics, flowers, greetings and gifts, computer hardware, and apparel and accessories. Each category grew at least 16 percent compared to the year-ago period.”

Opinion: Apple Competitors Fear its Ability to See the Future

  • Most of Apple’s competitors aren’t necessarily fearful of the company’s large market share or earnings, according to Tim Bajarin writing for TechPinions.
  • “What really scares them about Apple is the fact that Apple sees the future and then creates products that people want even if people do not know they want them,” he notes, after speaking with a number of competitors.
  • According to Bajarin, Apple has a knack for doing this. The company finds flaws in products and works to improve upon those or to reinvent products entirely. This was first evidenced by the iPod.
  • “Apple did not invent MP3 players,” writes Bajarin. “But they looked at the early versions and realized its flaws.”
  • “The first generations of MP3 player designs were less than interesting and the process of getting music on to them was difficult,” he notes. “So they figured that they could add their industrial design magic to it and build an ecosystem of software and services that made buying and playing music and eventually video simple to do so that today they still own 70 percent of the MP3 player market. After 11 years on the market they still don’t have a serious competitor in this space.”
  • Similar processes played out with the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. Apple did not invent smartphones, tablets or ultra-thin laptops, but the company certainly helped set the stage for all three.
  • With the application of its signature industrial design and knack for giving consumers what they want in advance of them knowing they want it, Apple continues to deliver very successful products — and continues to scare the competition.

Editorial: Cutting the Cable Cord Not a Rampage, But Definitely a Trend

  • Engadget posted a compelling editorial by Brad Hill this week regarding the cord-cutting trend. Hill is VP for audience development at AOL and former director and GM of Weblogs, Inc.
  • Some 2.65 million cable subscribers decided to get rid of their service between 2008 and 2011, reports Hill. Since 1.5 million of those decisions were made in 2011 alone, it seems that the cord-cutting trend is accelerating.
  • There are a few “emergent consumer requirements” according to Hill. One is the ability to watch TV off the traditional scheduling grid. This of course means having recording capabilities. The second is a demand for à la carte programming purchases, or not having favorite cable channel shows lumped into a large package with other unwanted channels.
  • But cutting the cord isn’t without its problems. “This realm is infested with provider irregularities,” notes the post. “For example, Hulu is available on Roku, but not on Boxee. YouTube is widely distributed to media streaming boxes, but not to Roku. Multiple intermediaries create uneven match-ups between those four programmers and the main box builders (Roku, Boxee, Apple TV, Google TV).”
  • Hill compares this to what the music industry went through during the MP3 revolution, perhaps predicting the future of cable.
  • “The music industry’s lack of resilience during the MP3 revolution illustrated stress fracture points,” explains the post. “Record labels tried to enforce the single-path model — CD purchases, in that case. That wasn’t à la carte enough for the playlist generation, so albums were, to an extent, exploded by single track sales. Then music ownership was redefined by subscription plans (a little bit) and social music platforms (a lot).”
  • Hill suggests that inflated cable bills, resistance to tiered pricing and content bundling, and “coercive herding of users into one content delivery path, reinforced by the rumored cable authentication model” could push toward disruptive alternatives.
  • “The cable cord-cutting movement is not yet a rampage, but it is a trend, and it is growing,” he concludes.

Virtual Movie Production Pushes to the Next Level with Avatar Sequels

  • The three companies responsible for the virtual production tools used in “Avatar” — James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment, Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital and vfx software maker Autodesk — are working together on sequels to the Oscar-winning film, pushing those effects to the next level with new developments.
  • “In looking toward the next ‘Avatar’ films, we wanted to be able to work with higher efficiency, see changes on the fly and have a lot less downtime,” says producer Jon Landau.
  • “It quickly became obvious that filmmakers wanted tools for a virtual camera, a new way to efficiently capture large files in real-time and a tool that allows a director to load virtual sets, explore those sets and then makes changes or adjustments on the fly,” notes Variety.
  • “They’re now all present in Autodesk’s MotionBuilder 2013 package, after Autodesk set up a system with Lightstorm and Weta that allowed them to experiment and update the software by incorporating quick feedback from the set and the computer screen, says Bruno Sargeant, senior product manager for virtual production at Autodesk.”
  • “As a result, filmmakers using the system can immediately view playback of actors within their digital environments and see everything exactly as it will appear on the screen,” explains the article.
  • Pre- and post-production needs continue to blur together as technology advances. It’s increasingly important for companies likes these three to work together and for different departments to work on a given film at the same time, making on-the-spot changes.
  • “The goal is to make production in virtual space even more filmmaker-centric, according to Landau. In other words, to allow easier interaction between director and thesps, enabling the helmer to quickly make decisions about what is and what is not working in the film’s virtual environment,” according to Variety.