Could Microsoft’s most recent updates to the Xbox 360 change cable TV as we know it?
“The Xbox 360 has nearly always had an impressive suite of media streaming options with Netflix and others. For most households, though, the offering was never enough to replace cable. In fact, it was more of a supplement,” reports Engadget. “But today’s announcement brings a host of new options, stations, and apps to the Xbox 360. With these new features, the Xbox 360 has finally become Microsoft’s Trojan Horse. The target? Cable companies.”
Originally unveiled at the E3 conference in 2005, the Xbox 360 has since become the best selling console and has morphed into a media platform rather than just a gaming system.
At E3 2012 this week, Microsoft announced new apps and media offerings. “Now, seven years after its reveal, the 360 truly fits the definition of a home entertainment system,” comments Engadget.
The Xbox 360 will now deliver Bing, Internet Explorer and other new media apps to the box, along with added live sports from NBA TV, NHL TV and content from several ESPN channels.
In addition to more content, there is now enhanced Kinect interaction with voice controls for Bing and Internet Explorer.
A new report from market research firm IHS iSuppli indicates that Netflix is now the dominant force in the online movie business, dethroning Apple’s iTunes.
“The firm credits Netflix’s success with its focus on TV-like subscriptions, which it sees as superior to the company’s DVD mail service or iTunes’ more traditional video on demand (VOD) model,” reports Ars Technica.
The report’s numbers note that Netflix went from 0.5 percent of the online movie market in 2010 to 44 percent in 2011.
Despite bumping up its prices, Netflix made deals with Apple, Microsoft, Roku, and others to be included in set-top boxes and dramatically increased its accessibility in 2011.
“Comparatively, Apple fell from 60.8 percent in 2010 to just 32.3 percent in 2011. The number three player, Microsoft, also fell between 2010 and 2011 — from 16.7 percent to 7.6 percent,” adds the post.
The online video market doubled revenue in that time frame and is expected to double again in 2012.
According to analyst Tony Wible of Janney Montgomery Scott, online streaming of television once helped network TV’s overall ratings, but no longer.
Wible suggests that we’re seeing a peak and perhaps even the start of a decline in benefit for network TV to stream its content online.
“Investors need to look at a broader set of metrics as they evaluate the impact of new technology adoption,” he says, noting that the data “is not reflective of current trends in the broader population but rather is a tool that helps us find harbingers for future trends.”
Wible indicates that the biggest surprise in his data revolves around broadband content usage, including Netflix, Amazon and others. “Users of broadband services watched 1 percent more TV in aggregate when looking at C3 ratings,” explains The Hollywood Reporter.
“Industry ratings may have been weaker for a longer period but were masked by a rapidly growing over-the-top sub base,” according to Wible. “The growth in over-the-top subs is now slowing, and the ratings benefit is moderating… This could be a sign that over-the-top subs are starting to migrate online, cannibalizing the networks they once helped.”
Henry Blodget, CEO and editor-in-chief of Business Insider, describes how dramatically television viewing has changed over the past five years.
He notes that television shows are commonly recorded and viewed later. Ads are typically not watched except during live sports. With Netflix, iTunes or HBO, ads have become “intrusions.”
Other than sports, the only other time many consumers watch live TV is for news events. Additionally, consumers are increasingly watching TV on various devices including laptops, smartphones and iPads.
Blodget lists some implications of these trends: 1) TV advertisers are wasting their money since we don’t watch the ads, and 2) Cable subscribers are wasting their money since they are paying for live TV that is rarely watched. Most programs are available on iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.
How will this impact the traditional TV business? Blodget suggests that networks will be replaced by libraries of content from Netflix, iTunes, and uber-networks like NBCUniversal and Time Warner. These are also more efficient for content production, acquisition, and distribution.
Viewers may figure out other ways to get their sports and stop paying the $100/month for cable TV. They will eventually see no distinction between TV and other forms of video content. And cable providers may stop paying affiliate fees to networks.
Like the newspaper business before it, the TV business is destined to become more efficient due to these changes in viewer behavior. The change may already be taking place, as cable TV ratings are dropping.
Groupon rival LivingSocial has partnered with AEG in a deal that will bring sports and entertainment tickets to the discount site.
AEG owns and operates — or is affiliated with — more than 100 venues (such as the Staples Center in Los Angeles). The deal comes after Groupon agreed to a similar deal with Ticketmaster.com about a year ago.
“LivingSocial’s AEG partnership is part of its Live Events business, which offers full-priced vouchers for entertainment and unique experiences,” reports Reuters. However, the service does not plan to offer big discounts on AEG events, which will be a departure from its daily deal model.
“It’s not an excess inventory dump,” said Doug Miller, senior VP of new business initiatives at LivingSocial. “Neither party came at this partnership with that idea.”
Reuters notes: “LivingSocial’s more than 60 million members will be able to buy vouchers for AEG events and get access to unique packages, such as VIP access or early admission at AEG venues, said Miller.”
During a surprising pre-E3 press conference, Nintendo unveiled its new Gamepad controller, which will include a pressure-sensitive touchscreen along with the traditional buttons and directional pad.
In addition, the device adds an NFC reader/writer and a gyroscope/accelerometer.
“This pre-briefing speaks to the confidence of Nintendo. These sort of details are generally reserved for Nintendo’s big E3 event,” comments TechCrunch. “Now that the Wii U hardware has been unveiled, Nintendo can spend even more time during its Tuesday morning press extravaganza showing off the games. Brilliant.”
Nintendo also showed a home theater remote app, which could possibly portend a larger home theater announcement.
According to a related article from AllThingsD, Nintendo is also introducing its social network called Miiverse that it claims will draw family and friends together.
The TechCrunch post includes a 30-minute video of the press conference.
The Evo 4G LTE Android phone for Sprint finally cleared customs and became available in stores over the weekend. The HTC phone was meant to begin sales in the U.S. on May 18, but was stopped at customs due to patent disputes with Apple.
“The Evo 4G LTE is the successor to the incredibly popular Evo 4G, which was one of Sprint’s best-selling phones ever,” reports VentureBeat.
“The 4G LTE model ups the ante on its predecessor by running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and featuring a 4.7-inch LCD display, a 1.5-GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB of RAM, and an 8-megapixel camera with HTC’s powerful ImageSense technology,” details the post.
The new phone runs on Sprint’s 4G LTE network, but unfortunately the network will not be operational until later this year. Until then, users must use Sprint’s 3G network.
According to Sprint, the 4G LTE network will initially be available in at least six major cities with coverage for 100 million Americans, to be followed by additional rollouts.
Reports indicate that users can expect to see Facebook integrated into the upcoming iOS 6 — an announcement likely to be officially made by Apple during the upcoming WWDC, slated for June 11-15 in San Francisco.
It was only a matter of time, according to The Verge, which notes that “both iOS 4 and Apple’s much-maligned Ping music/social network service both were hinted to have Facebook integration in early versions, only to have the final product released without it.”
“Twitter will still very much be a part of the new iOS (presumably named ‘iOS 6’ and codenamed ‘Sundance’), and that company will be holding sessions at WWDC to chat more about the continued partnership (including the integration into the forthcoming OS X Mountain Lion),” reports TechCrunch.
“Facebook integration will be very important for iOS — tons of apps use Facebook for sign-ups and authentication (many use Facebook as the only way to do this, to the dismay of some),” adds TechCrunch. “Apple was undoubtedly watching this activity and realized that it was time to formally bring Facebook on board.”
Shazam’s 200 million users tag 7 million songs per day, and the UK music discovery app now uses this data to predict what songs will become hits before they crack the charts.
Will Mills, Shazam’s director of music and content, explains how Shazam “can already see in advance which songs will be big, because their tagging pattern is quite peculiar. We can notice unusual behavior around a specific track — thousands of people thinking: ‘Wow, what the hell is this?’ and using Shazam to find out the answer. This usually starts weeks or even months ahead of the trend.”
The start-up has proven itself in the past by accurately predicting the success of artists such as Lana del Rey and Jessie J prior to going mainstream. “In fact, up to 85 percent of the songs that get to number one in Shazam’s charts go on to break into national top 10 charts, as well,” Mills adds.
Shazam has also proven valuable due to its ability to convert tags into purchases. Mills notes: “[checking out a song on Shazam] has a big impact on engagement. This is true of sales, with no less than 8 percent of our users going on to buy that song they have checked — but it also translates into other actions, such as checking when that band will go on tour and buying tickets.”
Ed Catmull, president of Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation studios, spoke at D10 last week. He discussed animation’s history, its current state, and what is yet to come.
Catmull notes that as technology advances, animators should use the technology to enhance stories, not to be the story. He says that “much of the technological push is to allow for new types of imagery to come into the screen to stimulate the creative process.”
“I think there should always be a next level,” said Catmull in response to a question suggesting that perhaps animation will reach a point where it cannot advance further.
Regarding future plans for Pixar and Disney, Catmull noted that “we never predicted the future, we just had our framework and our set of problems.” He says that where innovation begins is usually not where it ends up, and that his teams of innovators are working to make the next great look in animation, but he does not know where or what that will be.
Catmull admits that one of the most difficult challenges in recent years is that “the business model for filmmaking is changing.” While animation has not struggled as much as live action films due to its broad scope of viewership, Catmull says it is still a problem that haunts decisions due to constrained costs.
Check out a video of the full interview from the D10 stage on AllThingsD: “Catmull shares other words of wisdom on the art of melding technology and storytelling; the difficulties of running a hits-based business; and the thought process behind deciding when they produce a sequel.”
At last week’s D10 Conference in California, “disruption” was the predominant theme, according to The New York Times.
“Everything is being disrupted, including education, stock prices, business models and even our own industry,” said investor and technologist Esther Dyson. “It’s also clearly a world where you can’t count on anything anymore. Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others are simultaneously friends and enemies. There’s clearly a shift in their alliances.”
One such disruption is Facebook’s recent foray onto Wall Street: “Of course everyone agreed that the recent Facebook IPO, which came out of the gate at $100 billion valuation and just two short weeks later is painfully close to three quarters of that, will inevitably affect the industry for some time,” suggests NYT.
Co-founder of Freestyle Capital Josh Felser said that because of Facebook’s ongoing struggle, investors will be more cautious. “I think there is a fear that the path to outrageous public market valuations is more treacherous than we all thought. The IPO poster child, Facebook, has been a flop and there is definitely chatter that other IPOs are being delayed.”
Mary Meeker, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, described the latest run of initial public offerings by tech companies as “compelling in market value,” but “not compelling in performance.”
“She cited Facebook, Zynga, GroupOn and Yelp, which are all trading well below their IPO price,” notes the article.
Google and Facebook are considering a joint investment in Vevo, the online music video service. The deal “could be part of a broader advertising partnership with the music service,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Reports suggest that Vevo recently hired investment bank Allen & Co. to explore options such as bringing in new investors, selling and going public. The scope of Google and Facebook’s interest is unknown.
“An investment could allow Vevo, a joint venture of Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Abu Dhabi Media, to fund an expansion onto further platforms and the purchase of additional music rights,” notes the article. The result could value Vevo at about $1 billion.
Vevo has an ongoing deal with Google’s YouTube “to host its videos in exchange for about a third of the ad revenue,” explains THR. But Vevo hopes to reduce YouTube’s cut of that ad revenue when the current agreement ends at the end of the year.
Mobile devices using iOS can wirelessly share photos with Web-connected devices through the new Photobeamer app from Scalado.
The 99-cent app can transmit to game consoles, smart TVs, PCs and tablets (as long as the browser is pointed to the Photobeamer home page).
“Having given it a quick test, we’d say it’s definitely up to regular domestic challenges where you just want to display a few photos rather than perhaps videos or presentation slides, and where there’s no need to print or store shared images,” notes Engadget.
“You can swipe left and right between different pictures in your gallery, and also choose whether you want those images to be fitted to the recipient display or resized to fill it,” adds the post.
Walt Mossberg criticized Web advertising in a conversation with Google’s Susan Wojcicki and Sundar Pinchi at D10 yesterday.
Wojcicki, SVP of ads for the tech giant, explained that although Web advertisements deserve some criticism, Google effectively “seems to serve the right ads when people want them.”
“One of the things that really matters is the moment,” she said. “Ad information, and targeting to serve the right ad at right time, makes a difference.”
“From that moment, Google’s machine-learning smart ad systems — known internally as ‘Smartass,’ says Wojcicki — kick in, playing a key part in the system’s success at showing the most relevant ads, featured in the most prominent positions,” explains AllThingsD.
Google made $8.1 billion last quarter, most of which came from advertising.
Skype CEO Tony Bates spoke at D10 yesterday and discussed Skype’s $8.5 billion merger with Microsoft as well as the company’s hopes for the future.
He notes that Skype and Microsoft are working together to integrate Skype into Microsoft’s Kinect software. “I can’t talk about anything in the future,” Bates said, but did acknowledge something is in the works.
Bates also discussed Skype’s integration with Facebook, saying “when we talked to Facebook we share a lot of things, I think, in common about communications and sharing experiences.” He describes Skype’s Facebook integration as “a great match.”
Bates notes that smartphones are the fastest growing segment of Skype users, topping tablets and PCs.
“One thing he said won’t change is that he’ll still have the opportunity to build the service on non-Microsoft products, such as Android and iOS,” reports AllThingsD. “But he was clear about what he wasn’t open to — creating it so users could access Skype with people using different video-calling services.”
Could Microsoft’s most recent updates to the Xbox 360 change cable TV as we know it?
