Interviews
Comics: A Conversation with Zack Whedon
It was a Dark Horse weekend at Golden Apple Comics in Hollywood– first Felicia Day and the cast of The Guild Friday night, celebrating the release of the first Guild comic, then Zack Whedon on Saturday, signing copies of Terminator 2029. Golden Apple is where we’ve been getting our fix since 2004, and owner Ryan … Read more
Catching up with Boxee (And introducing TechVi)
For the last year or so I’ve pitched pressured my blogging buddies to work with me on some sort of ensemble video podcast. But we never seemed to find the time, motivation, or skills. And now Randall Bennett, who you may recognize from Engadget and CNET, has independently launched TechVi. I participated in a pre-alpha … Read more
Infonetics Analyst Jeff Heynen on Home Networks, Bandwidth Caps, & More
The analyst firm Infonetics came out with a report this week on the Broadband CPE market. CPE stands for customer premises equipment and refers to the home devices attached to a broadband network – everything from modems, to set-tops, and lately new gadgets like femtocells and a variety of home management controllers. Jeff Heynen, author of the report, sees short-term, recession-driven declines in the market, but also projects longer-term growth. I interviewed Jeff for a more detailed account of what types of gadgets he things we’ll see from cable and telco providers over the next several years. Here’s what he had to say.
Interview with Jeff Heynen, Directing Analyst, Infonetics Research
Q. One of the things you mention in your report is that you think we’ll see growth in broadband connections from 2010 to 2013 to support “converged” services – “voice, video, and high-speed Internet now, and home monitoring and automation services later.” What kinds of products do you think will support these services? Will we see more devices like the Verizon Hub and the AT&T HomeManager? They don’t seem to be getting much traction now.
A. Those two products are very early concepts for how home communications systems might work. The traction for those products is bad for any number of reasons, including macroeconomic conditions, their price points, and a general confusion among subscribers as to their utility. I really think both providers missed out on integrating some femtocell capabilities in those devices, rather than introducing separate femtocell gateways with yet another recurring fee. Why not combine the two, increase mobile reception in the home, while providing a low-cost, high-featured VoIP line to increase ARPU on a fixed broadband connection?
In the short-term, we really see growth in digital home gateways, which combine a modem, gateway, IAD (EMTA), and some type of home networking function (MoCA, HPNA, G.hn, etc.). Operators will be able to monitor these devices and their performance remotely and effectively move their sphere of influence into the home to ensure the stable performance of all their services, especially video.
Q. With potential growth in home monitoring and automation services, do you think we’ll see more supporting products (like cameras and home controllers) come to market through retail, through service providers, or through a hybrid retail-product-bundled-with-service model?
A. I think the hybrid approach, where operators distribute their own systems, but also have their own areas within retail stores, selling bundled packages is the likeliest scenario.
Letting the GiiNii out of the Bottle
GiiNii was perhaps the biggest surprise out of CES in January. The company seemed to appear out of nowhere with a brilliant line-up of CE devices including C-U-C-Me cameras, PixPlus Wi-Fi photo frames, and a touch-screen, Android-based handheld called the Movit Mini (think iPod Touch with an Android OS). Of course it’s one thing to put on a good show at CES, and quite another to bring good products to market, so I went digging for a few more details… and landed an interview with GiiNii VP Dennis Sones.
The most exciting gadget news I learned during the conversation is that GiiNii’s 7-inch touch-screen tablet, the Movit Max (due out in Q4), will be priced “about the same as other brands’ Wi-Fi picture frames.” In other words, for this year’s holiday season we could be looking at a sub-$300 tablet display. Other companies are focused on introducing their own “kitchen computers,” but the $600 price tag is simply too high for a secondary device. On the other hand, the 7-inch GiiNii MoveIt Max could well be within reach if it truly hits the lower price point. And that brings me to GiiNii’s overall strategy for CE products. In brief: emulate Vizio.
A Sneak-Peek Pic from FrameChannel
Sneak-peek screenshot of new FrameChannel UI due in February
Chances are reasonably high that you’ve never heard of FrameChannel. Wireless photo frames are still new in consumer adoption terms, and the idea of a content provider for these frames is a bit counter-intuitive. (Aren’t you just supposed to put your own pics on them?) Nonetheless, FrameChannel is expanding rapidly. At CES, FrameChannel was represented in about twenty different booths, and over the holiday season, ten different companies sold digital frames with access to FrameChannel content. Since its founding two years ago, parent company FrameMedia has inked deals with 30-40 providers including Reuters, Getty Images, People.com, WeatherBug, and at least one financial news aggregator. Want RSS feeds of your own photos from one the many online photo sites? You can get that with FrameChannel too.
FrameMedia has a good head start in what promises to be an interesting new media space. Think of a customized online portal, and then picture it on a frame in your living room. Microsoft’s interested, and has its own beta FrameIt service (more on that later). There’s also reason for other large aggregators like Yahoo and Google to get in on the game. But, for right now, FrameChannel appears to be ahead of everyone. And FrameMedia has a plan for it to stay that way.
In talking to COO and co-founder Jon Feingold last week, the key to FrameChannel’s future success is both distribution and the ability to deliver content intelligently. For example, if you’re tagged in a photo on Facebook, or there’s a live game happening with one of your favorite sports teams, FrameMedia’s goal is to have FrameChannel deliver that data when it’s important to you, i.e. in the moment, but probably not so much in a week, or two, or three. FrameMedia is also laser focused on integrating with as many photo sharing sites and social networks as possible. The company wants to make sure you can access your content no matter where it’s stored, in addition to the best of everything else on the Web.
Can and Should RedLasso Survive?
The idea behind RedLasso is deceptively simple. The service lets bloggers search and share TV clips online. Unfortunately, once you get past that one-line description, things get a lot more complicated. What about copyright? Distribution agreements? Who should get paid for content reuse? After sitting down with RedLasso’s CEO Kenyon Hayward, I came to two conclusions. First, most people are looking at RedLasso from the wrong angle. And second, if TV networks don’t start signing deals with the company, they’ll find they have to build or buy an equivalent service in the near future anyway.
Above everything else, I now think of RedLasso as a reference tool. The company catalogs broadcast content and brings it to a platform (the Web) suitable for searching and sorting. Broadcasters should love this. It creates a way for them to monetize chunks of their content without having to do a speck of work. You know all that money broadcasters have made off traditional syndication deals? RedLasso gives them an opportunity to do the same thing on the Web, but with news instead of entertainment, and in a format that works for the online world – short clips supported by embedded advertising from video ad networks.
So why are the networks sending RedLasso cease-and-desist letters? Ken Hayward makes clear that RedLasso isn’t interested in replaying network shows for free online, and raw content is only available for a limited period of time. Presumably the networks are concerned because they’re still hung up on the control issue. It’s their content after all. Shouldn’t the networks get control over how it’s used?
The answer of course is: not anymore. Ceding control to viewers is what has made Web video so popular. And the fact that RedLasso can help the networks make money on such a turbulent platform should be appealing. If the networks don’t recognize that now, they’ll likely come to understand it as Web video viewing continues to skyrocket in the coming months and years.
Now here’s the reality check. RedLasso has a lot going for it, including huge viewership numbers, but it’s got a lot of obstacles too. Even with the money the company’s raised, it’s bringing in no revenue right now because it won’t roll ads until content deals are in place. It can keep going for a while, but given how notoriously slow-moving big media is, the question arises: Can RedLasso survive long enough to bring the networks on board and achieve real legitimacy?
Digital Media Bytes
A periodic roundup of relevant news… Dave missed while vacationing. DVB-T tuners, DVR functionality, and placeshifting coming to European PS3: Sony Logitech Harmony 1000 reviewed: PC Mag Paramount and Dreamworks sell out to HD DVD: TiVo Lovers YouTube video advertising arrives: Yahoo