Industry Archives - Page 113 of 145

Pandora’s Grass Roots Marketing

Another quick note about Pandora as the next-generation MySpace… They’re taking a very social-networking approach to marketing. A musician friend of mine attended an event back in November hosted by Pandora at UPenn. The event was not directed at press, but instead consisted of founder Tim Westergren talking to students and gathering feedback and suggestions … Read more

Slingbox & HAVA Holiday Software Updates

Software updates for both Slingbox and HAVA placeshifting devices have been released. For the most part these offer minor enhancements and tweaks. SlingPlayer 1.4.0.206 The changes are mostly subtle, such as the inclusion of the latest Slingbox Pro HD firmware and “official” support for Slingbox Classic. What’s most interesting, and not part of the software, … Read more

Pandora the New MySpace?

I’m not an expert Pandora user. I only discovered it this year, and I haven’t remotely finished plumbing the feature set. Mostly I just create new stations when I remember a particular artist or song I love and leave it at that. That’s one of the great things about Pandora. You can be a casual user and still thoroughly enjoy the service.

Last week, however, Michael Arrington and I got an email from the Pandora folks: Seems they’ve gone and made the service more Web 2.0’ish. Now you can find shared stations within the Pandora community, see who is listening to what, and search for songs, stations and listener profiles by keyword.

The original, innovative idea behind Pandora is music discovery, and the fact that you can do things like seed stations with specific music to discover similar works is a great one. While the latest features still clearly fall under that concept, there is also something else going on here. Check out this quote from Pandora’s blog:

Find other Pandora listeners that share your musical tastes, hometown, school, or place of work. Explore their favorite songs and artists, listen to their stations, and leave them comments. Even bookmark them so you can check what they’re into later.

Once you add in elements like “hometown” and “school,” Pandora suddenly starts to sound a lot more like MySpace or Facebook to me. And indeed, I’ve heard from a lot of companies lately suggesting that the next wave of social networking sites will be based around specific interests. Vertical social networks.

So is Pandora the new, cooler MySpace?

Toshiba’s SED TV Derailed

Wanna guess what Mari and I won’t be seeing at CES next month? Toshiba’s new SED TV. SED (surface-conduction electron-emitter display) TVs are hyped as LCD/Plasma replacements — similar cost and form factor, but with CRT picture quality. Unfortunately Toshiba’s partner in this technology, Canon, is involved in a licensing dispute with Nano-Proprietary. (Is their … Read more

Blogosphere Smackdown: DVR or DVD?

Let’s face it, there are only so many hours in the day you can actually watch TV. I consider myself a huge TV nut and certainly do my best to boost up the national average, but even with my voracious appetite for film, I still can’t keep up with everything that is being produced right now, let alone all the good films that have been made in the past.

Add to this distractions from the internet, real life, my poker habit, and this little thing called work that I’ve actually got to do once in a while, and it’s clear that something has to give. Because we’re limited by time, consumers are forced to choose between not just what we watch, but how we watch it as well.

In a great post highlighting the smackdown between DVDs and DVRs in competing for our attention, The One Eyed Man Rules, covers the various reasons behind why the DVR has replaced the DVD in his life. Among the advantages are the problems that come up when his kids use DVDs as frisbees, the speed at which it takes for you to boot up a DVD compared to the ease of hitting a button on a DVR and having your programming right there, and being forced to watch a bunch of crappy Disney ads vs. being able to fast forward past ads on a DVR.

The ZNF Festivus Update

Well, it’s getting to be that time of year — No, not the Festival of Lights… The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is nearly upon us! However, being the holidays, Netgear has gifted me with an all-expense paid trip to Vegas plus $2k to blow on showgirls and gambling side trips to museums and the Hoover … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… Philips cranks out Windows Vista Media Center remotes: Chris Lanier BBC to offer free show downloads for the US: BBC Hands on with Akimbo’s new RCA box: GigaOM Walmart bundles adult content with Zune: Fox Chicago Arrington dumps Netflix for Blockbuster: TechCrunch Purchase a TiVo Series3 for as low … Read more

Hands On With HAVA

First seen at CES last January, the HAVA place shifting device began shipping in August. Initially Monsoon Multimedia offered one box with WiFi to stream your home television feed, but they’ve since changed gears and are now offering two cosmetically redesigned boxes: one with WiFi @ $250, one without @ $200. Unlike competitors Slingbox and Sony’s LocationFree, Monsoon is also licensing their technology as an OEM to Pinnacle Systems.

For the last several months, I’ve spent some time with two loaner HAVA boxes. When reviewing any placeshifting technology, the obvious comparisons to market leader Sling Media must be made. With that in mind, here’s what I found given the comparable video quality:

HAVA Pros

Built-in WiFi and component connections.
Ability to record live stream.
Sleek software GUI with simple setup.

HAVA Cons

Limited software functionality.
Windows-only for the moment.
Could not receive feed over EVDO. (Tech support blamed Sprint’s upload speeds…)

So what’s the bottom line? If you’re a Windows-only user with a need for built-in wireless or unscheduled recording: HAVA’s worth looking at. Though… I’d probably suggest waiting a few months until Monsoon works out some of the software kinks and adds functionality to better compete with Sling Media’s more mature player.

Check out some pics after the break and hit me with questions in the comments.