Bejeweled, DailyMotion, Digg all want a bite from that Apple mojo

With only a fraction of the audience of any other mobile platform the iPhone is attracting dedicated development the way a chic new mall with little traffic sucks in upscale retailers. Everyone wants a piece of the hype, and so branded media and many marquee Web sites are pouring iPhone Web apps into the mix just this past week. The most visible, PopCap Games’s signature game Bejeweled, rolled out yesterday and in recent days DailyMotion opened a section of its streaming video portal formatted for the mobile Safari browser. Both releases are some of the best examples of what is possible under the iPhone’s Web-only platform for third party digital media developers.

As a Sci-Tech Today piece announcing Bejeweled points out, it is challenging to develop games for a mobile platform as Web-only apps. The Bejeweled game for the iPhone is free, but other PopCap games either come with ad support or as for-pay downloads. Making a subscription gateway for a game that players can’t even keep locally on their phone could be a tough model to sell, even to those Bejeweled-addled soccer moms.

Web-based games like Bejeweled also suffer on this platform from a lack of audio. Even via its modest speaker, the iPhone has good sound, so current third party apps miss an entire, vital dimension of game design.

See Also

• Digg

Posted under Michael's Blog

Can The Internet really generate new entertainment properties?

The reported cancellation of the HBO/AOL online comedy venture “This Just In” demonstrates that an age-old (for this business) question about the entertainment possibilities of the Web still have not been resolved in the halls of major media. Launched loudly in early 2007 as a comedy destination for AOL and a potential incubator for new programming concepts, the site never got audience traction and recently suffered staffing changes. Both Hollywood Reporter and Variety are reporting the project will close in coming months, reflecting division in Time Warner about the best uses of the Internet in relation to the other businesses. Rather than generate new businesses and ancillary ad revenue online, HBO seems to be aiming towards leveraging existing brands with an on-demand portal, Variety reports. Apparently reacting to reports of its imminent demise, “This Just In” opens this morning with a YouTube clip of office workers singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

Interestingly, the recently departed head of “This Just In,” Steve Sanford has already come this route before at his previous company, Icebox.com, which tried to incubate animation concepts. Anyone remember “Hard Drinkin’ Lincoln” and the racially charged “Mr. Wong” series? They live on at Icebox.com, by the way. The dream of using the Web as a breeding ground of new talent and programs that can port to offline platforms remains just that, a dream more than a reality. TheAlphaMarketer blogger Gary Bourgeault asks whether the online comedy market has just become too cluttered already. In fact, it has been hard enough just building a dedicated online audience around a serialized creative property of any kind. Bud.tv is the latest example of high profile Web-exclusives that fail to slip into people’s online rituals. Veterans of new media will remember the big crash–and-burns of the pre-bubble years like TheDen and PseudoTV as well.

Both scale and distribution seem to bedevil many of these projects (well, and there is talent and quality, too). But the big successes online have been smaller (“Ask a Ninja”, “RocketBoom”) and viral. Whether big-footed big media really can come into a grassroots medium like the Web and fabricate the kind of low-overhead economics and highly imaginative homegrown energy that fuels these small winners remains an open question. The cancellation of “This Just In” underscores how major media still haven’t gotten their heads around this medium yet.   

See Also

• HBO
• This Just In

Posted under Michael's Blog

It was with a sense of déjà vu I read a story in a telecom newsletter reporting a clampdown on illegal satellite television dishes in Shanghai.

Authorities in Shanghai’s Nanhui District are shutting down retailers of illegal satellite dishes and checking up on holders of licenses to show overseas satellite channels reported the Shanghai Evening Post last week.

Such periodic crackdowns have been running for at least the past five years. Estimates for illegal dishes run at up to 30 million across China which makes life hard for any competing Pay-TV service. Indeed, so entrenched are the satellite services I know one Shanghai expat executive who protested he was completely unaware he was watching an illegal soccer feed.

But will it be different this time? Now that Win TV have coughed up $50 million for EPL soccer rights there will be another stake-holder pushing authorities to act.  CCTV will also have an interest to make sure its Olympic coverage is watched after paying for rights. The telecom and cable carriers paying for new digital infrastructure will join that list.

Enforcement is just one part of the solution say some in the industry. It is also necessary to explore innovative low cost alternatives to pirates. Sony for instance in South Korea in June launched a trial of “free” VoD of Hollywood movies on leading web portal Daum – the first time such a model has been used in Asia with a Hollywood studio.

The model allows customers to watch the movie for free and the service will hopefully be supported by advertising revenues. We are not talking new releases but decent library material such as ‘Bad Boys’ or ‘Godzilla’. If the numbers add up, Sony will look to extend the service to other markets. According to Ross Pollack, senior VP of Asian Distribution at Sony he has received various enquiries from China looking to put legitimate content on P2P sites.  

With P2P users often in excess of 100 million in China, there is at least a potentially large audience. Of course to have a chance, pirate sites would need to be tackled at the same time.

Posted under Michael's Blog

The Nielsen and comScore broadband video numbers cut many ways

Despite industry and analyst worries that broadband video was undermining Americans’ taste for traditional TV, Nielsen and the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) found in a new study that online video barely affects TV viewing time. “A Barometer of Broadband Content and Its Uses Report” saw in March 2007 a 16% jump in online video viewing overall in six months. The survey found 81 million people watching broadband video, about a third of whom say it actually increases their TV view time. Nielsen/CTAM claims that the top media brands also dominate online video usage, with ABC.com leading the TV brands and Yahoo Movies topping the movie category.

The CTAM report may be spinning the effect of online video viewing a bit too much the TV networks’ way, however. The latest comScore report on streaming video in May shows that Google/YouTube sites absolutely dominate the share of streams served to visitors (21.5%) compared to next-best Fox Interactive Media and its MySpace properties (8.1%). Viacom (2.8%), Time Warner (2.2%) ABC.com (1.2%) and NBCU (0.7%) are distant also-rans in terms of streams served, even if many of the TV-oriented videos come in longer lengths. It seems undeniable that online video does shift viewer loyalty and introduce new brands that ultimately can threaten traditional suppliers. comScore’s numbers underscore an inconvenient truth for cable and networks: social media, namely YouTube and MySpace, are the engines that really drive online video viewing. Unless the traditional companies tap into that current more effectively, they will be also-rans.

News Corp.’s Fox Broadcasting is best positioned to merge social media and traditional TV with sister company MySpace. Yesterday, Fox and the Producers Guild of America announced a partnership to create “The Storyteller Challenge” on MySpace, which invites aspiring producers to submit 5-7 minute TV pilots on the social network to win cash and a possible development deal with Fox. The MySpace community will watch and respond to the pilots, of course. Big TV has to do more than just pour prime time onto the Web. The upcoming NBCU/Fox portal and CBS strategies seem to involve hyper-distribution, a determination to put their shows and their advertising everywhere on the Web. But even the ad media buyers who want to see more opportunities to advertise against reliable marquee brands want to see more creativity from the networks. Agency buyers tell me that they are looking for more unique online extensions of TV brands, iterations of prime time that make more sense in the interactive environment than just TV on the Web.

– Steve Smith

Posted under Michael's Blog

Sprint’s announcement that it will partner with Google to create a mobile Internet portal for its upcoming WiMax service has to be bittersweet.

Google users will get to access all their favorite tools — including search, Gmail and calendar — on the network that Sprint claims will reach 100 million people by the end of 2008. It’s another step toward turning cellphones into mini-computers.

Great so far. Except that super-fast computer cellphones will also enable something Sprint wants far less: VOIP on a massive scale.

Consider that the vast majority of wireless carriers’ revenue still comes from voice services. WiMax and other broadband wireless services mean that the day is closer when consumers on unlimited data plans will choose cheap VOIP calls over expensive network calls.

Cheap landline phone calls are what forced the carriers to deploy IPTV as a new revenue stream. Now, carriers like Sprint are seeing the same thing happen for cellphones. The first all-you-can-eat wireless plans are already emerging.

Sprint’s hope to retain profits lie in offering cool data services like a WiMax powered Google portal. Problem is, such portals will also kill its profits, too.

It’s a little like marrying the thief who took all your money because they’re rich. Go figure.

See Also

• Sprint WiMax Release

Posted under Uncategorized

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-07-24 17:23

Los Angeles – iHollywood China is to co-produce a daylong digital media conference with the Chinese government departments and China’s largest television broadcaster, CCTV.

“This is a rare opportunity where the Chinese government will allow key Hollywood players to come face-to-face with Chinese officials and investors to develop exclusive digital media deals in China,” said Michael Stroud, whose company, iHollywood Forum, has produced key digital media conferences since 2000.

…read more

Posted under Michael's Blog

Mobile video aggregator brings iTunes-like functionality to phones

One of the most interesting mobile video plays and technologies I have seen recently is from MyWaves.com, primarily an off-deck video aggregator that brings iTunes-like functionality to phones. Getting content providers in the mobile arena to provide hard subscription numbers is tough enough, so MyWaves’ announcement yesterday that it had signed its one millionth subscriber is notable. According to CEO Rajeev Raman, the service is signing people up at a rate of 25,00 to 35,000 a day and serving one to two million video views a day as well. 

MyWaves only launched in December, and its marketing profile has been slight, but its exponential growth is a testament to how quickly mobile content can scale. While the initial model for MyWaves.com has been free, ad-supported, off-deck distribution, the company also announced yesterday it was launching a BREW version of its Java client on Alltel, where it would run as a $3.99 service. There is more on the Alltel deal at FierceMobileContent.

The most remarkable aspect of MyWaves is how fluidly it brings existing video material from the Web to the phone. Most of the branded video podcasts from CNN, ABC, RocketBoom, Ask a Ninja, etc. can be added to your customized video list online or on the phone deck itself, and the two stay in synch, much like an iPod and iTunes. Raman tells me that he is hoping to bring the ad model to many of the video podcasts already on the Web because he believes mobile distribution of this scale offers better CPMs than they might get. At the same time, MyWaves lets user create channels of content from video and even make them private for sharing among a select group. Part of the MyWaves model also involves giving any brand or content provider online the ability to mobilize their Web video with a single SND2MBL button that pushes a Web-based video through the MyWaves system and out to any designated cell phone number. The MyWaves staff has experience at Yahoo, Tivo, CBS, and PayPal. The experience shows in the product, which is among the smoothest implementations of mobile video I have seen. MyWaves is also among the first video services to offer an iPhones version.

See Also

• MyWaves
• Alltel

Posted under Uncategorized

This week the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), China’s telecommunications regulator said mobile phone users exceeded 500 million at the end of June.

A total of 40.56 million mobile phone users signed up in the first half to reach 501 million, an average of  6.76 million a month. But there is still room for growth with 38 out of every 100 people in the mainland owining a phone.

Short message service traffic continues to go gangbusters, up 37.5 per cent to 279 billion messages. These figures also show China Mobile’s dominance continues as it takes the lion’s share of the market. It added over five million users on average each month since March, and 31.1 million users in the first six months. It is dwarfing smaller rival China Unicom, which had 151 million subscribers split across its GSM and CDMA networks. 112 million of those are GSM, the rest CDMA.

China Mobile’s success is also coming at the expense of the fixed-line industry (China Netcom and China Telecom) which is struggling with mobile substitution.  Across China only added 4.86 million users or 810,000 users per month on average in the first six months, adding up to 372 million. 

The lopsided industry where China Mobile’s pre-tax profits accounts for more than China Netcom, China Unicom and China Telecom put together is one reason speculation over industry restructuring fails to go away. It is another reason the fixed line players have been lobbying hard for mobile and IPTV licences.

Of course, broadband continues to be a bright spot for the fixed line carriers with users now reaching 122 million according to latest figures.  

Posted under Michael's Blog

Amp’d Users Get Another Week of Spotty Service

Updating our post of days ago on the imminent demise of MVNO Amp’d. According to the latest iteration of its Q&A, Amp’d Mobile will “potentially” shut down on July 31 instead of the original July 24 date. It may be a long slow crawl to MVNO death, however. Our Amp’d Mobile phone was getting very spotty service, including a lot of dropped links to video and music downloads. Not that Amp’d was very good at this stuff to begin with. We have played with the youth-oriented wireless provider’s content for over a year now and performance and reliability were never its hallmarks.

According to Forbes, Amp’d is holding an auction on July 31, so it is possible another carrier would pick it up from disgruntled partner Verizon. We’re not sure how that would work, since all of the Amp’d service and software is BREW-based to accommodate the Verizon network, and none of the other major North American players runs a BREW platform.

Posted under Michael's Blog

In acquiring behavioral targeting newtork and technology Tacoda, AOL is vying to become a major player in ad sales across the Web

In purchasing one of the two biggest and oldest behavioral targeting providers online, Tacoda, AOL is increasing its reach into the general Web advertising world and rebuilding its crumbling fee-based empire on the ad model. Broken yesterday by The New York Post, whixh pegged the deal at between $200 and $300 million, the acquisition adds to AOL’s previous purchase of Advertising.com, another large ad network that serves behavioral ads. The blogs were abuzz with valuation speculation, but Reuters reports $275 million, accoridng to an insider. Tacoda’s network touches about 120 million users, and so AOL is demonstrating that it plans to re-build its lost empire of subscriber revenue on an ad model that reaches across the entire Web. Kate Kaye’s excellent analysis at ClickZ outlines how this follows AOL’s purchase of mobile ad network Third Screen Media and video ad technology Lightningcast.

AOL is positioning itself not only as a a big ad player but also one that like Yahoo could cater to the entertainment industry. Behavioral targeting currently occupies a small slice of the overall digital ad spend, but interest in it is growing and its use among entertainment marketers is strong. Behavioral targeting can tag visitors to a portal’s TV or film section as interested media consumers and then serve them relevant ads as they move “out of context” into other content areas. The Tacoda deal gives AOL even more reach out into the Web at large, so it can target ads at people even when they move off of the AOL.com property. For entertainment marketers, behavioral targeting could prove critical in finding enough ad inventory. As it is most TV and film areas at the major portals sell out far in advance and at high CPMs. At yesterday’s Behavioral Marketing Forum in New York, which I programmed (and blogged here), several ad executives mentioned the important of this platform for finding users when they are off the pricier entertainment portals. AOL is among the most important distribution hubs for movie trailers and TV clips and schedules. By tagging and following entertainment consumers here, AOL could be building a very Hollywood-friendly ad product.

See Also

• AOL
• Tacoda

Posted under Michael's Blog