Industry

Redbox Fifth Largest DVD Rental Company

Since Davis is on safari and I know how much he loves DVD rental kiosks, I figure I better cover the Redbox news on his behalf: “We are extremely proud to join the nation’s top five DVD renters and reinforce our leadership position in the automated DVD rental category,â€? said Gregg Kaplan, chief executive officer, … Read more

Slinging With CBS

In case you didn’t catch the news yesterday, CBS is expanding their online video presence. Instead of funneling folks onto a single video site, they’re taking a different approach by providing CBS content to a variety of online destinations. We at Sling Media (my employer) are psyched to expand our relationship with CBS (see Clip+Sling) … Read more

It’s Fandango-tastic!

A million years ago, and for a very brief period of time, I did some public relations work with the Comcast High-Speed Internet division. At the time, Comcast was pushing its Comcast.net portal as a destination site for news, video, entertainment and applications like photo sharing and shopping. Unfortunately, only Comcast subscribers could access everything … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs. Wireless carriers like convergence: Connected Home 2 Go BeyondTV 4.6.1 with QAM support shipping: SnapStream Blog Fiber as recruiting tool: Connected Home 2 Go The DIBA debate: Connected Home 2 Go

The Network DVR: Cablevision Presses On

A few weeks after being killed in District Court, Cablevision is taking their network DVR concept to a higher authority. Cablevision really only has three options: Broker deals as Time Warner has, drop the idea, or continue the fight. Guess what they chose? According to Multichannel News… Hoping to revive plans to pursue a network-based … Read more

My Vonage Line Is Safe For Now (Bummer)

To recap… Verizon went after Vonage, claiming patent infringement. The jury agreed that Vonage infringed on three of Verizon’s patents, ordering $56 million in repayment plus future royalties. The court seemed to move towards a total injunction, but yesterday GigaOm reported on Verizon’s propsal: Judge Claude Hilton has issued an injunction that bars Vonage from … Read more

When Unlimited… Isn’t

Sounds like our “unlimited” data plans may not be so unlimited after all… In two separate revelations this week, both Verizon and Comcast appear to have very specific limits in place (though Comcast isn’t disclosing a number). CybernetNews documents Verizon’s mobile broadband service agreement: We reserve the right to limit throughput or amount of data … Read more

Comcast DVR Ads Spread to Bay Area

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Jeremy was disappointed to discover Comcast dropped banner ads onto his DVR this week:

I noticed I’d lost about 1/8th of my overall screen space to a new “advertisement slot.” Worse yet, I’ve lost 2 (of 6) lines of the visible grid area, meaning I have to spend roughly 1/3 longer than before just to scroll through channels.

Assuming he’s stuck with them, JT provides several interesting suggestions on how Comast (or is it Motorola?) might improve their ad-serving implementation. Until then, he wonders where that Comcast-Motorola-TiVo is… While he’ll get a better interface (one day), the ads won’t be going away:

make the TiVo(R) service and advertising capability widely available to Comcast customers

combine TiVo’s unmatched DVR features and innovative advertising capabilities with the power of Comcast’s advanced digital television services

TiVo and Comcast will make TiVo’s interactive advertising platform available across Comcast’s customer base

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