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Friday, August 22, 2003 |
Hauppauge [HAUP; Nasdaq] and others are making these devices that the NYT's Mcmanus describe as "bridging the gap" between the PC and the TV enabling consumers to display "media content" that resides on PCs. Curiously, there is no word on the Hauppague website about the MediaMVP product that Mcmanus references in his article [From PC to TV Screen, a Stream of Multimedia. Your PC is brimming with great photos, MP3's and videos. But your family and friends are glued to the television. By Neil Mcmanus. New York Times: Technology] and no indication of its price or feature set.
Among other things, Hauppaauge makes a 350 Meg PC/DVR card that sells for $200.
11:50:43 AM 
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There is a significant battle going on for control of the intellectual property surrounding the delivery of targeted television and internet advertising.
Ad firm 24/7 pushing for patent power. 24/7 Real Media wins another patent for delivering digital ads, giving it new authority over the online-ad serving market as it pursues patent licenses to improve shareholder value. [CNET News.com]
10:28:06 AM
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Monday, August 11, 2003 |
ABC recently launched it's "Search for the sexiest man in America" contest in conjunction with TV show All My Children [ http://amc.tcsinteractive.com/phase3/index.cfm ] . The contest is comparable to some of BSkyB's iTV programs in the UK. Consumers can use their cell phones to vote by sending a premium text message to the show. [This requires a subscription to premium text messaging plus a transaction charge $0.50 per message.]
This is something of a milestone. It is the first time in the USA that we have seen a linkage between a television program and the use of cellular telephone text messaging premium services.
3:10:26 PM
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Wednesday, August 06, 2003 |
This article is about the expansion of the bid-for-ad-placement concept from strictly the search domain to the general "web-site" browsing context.
If You Liked the Web Page, You'll Love the Ad. Online publishers are beginning to sense the possibilities of having Google or Overture serve ads to their audiences. By Bob Tedeschi. [New York Times: Technology]
1:33:18 PM
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Moto Labs apparently thinks it has discovered a viable commercial process for manufacturing television displays based on carbon nanotube technology, which would theoritically provide a CRT quality image at a cost that is significantly lower than current plasma and LCD displays.
"Motorola’s NED [nano emissive display ] approach to displays could enable low cost, flat panel wall-mounted television, greater than 50“ diagonal, and just one inch deep to become a reality in the not too distant future. The technology also could be used for much larger displays, such as those used in billboard advertising or sporting events."
11:22:55 AM
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A number of news media have been reporting that Harris Interactive and Teenage Research Unlimited studies show that "the Internet has surpassed television in overall time spent to become the primary medium of choice among the 13-24 age group."
According to an article in PubZone [ http://www.pubzone.com/newsroom/2003/1x20030730x085831.cfm ] quoting the study results: "an average week for the teens and young adults includes 16.7 hours online (excluding email); 13.6 hours watching TV; 12 hours listening to radio; 7.7 hours talking on the phone; six hours reading books and magazines (personal, not academic). "
11:07:04 AM
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Carat has an interesting little item on their web site.
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Is interactive TV advertising a lost dream? |
09-Mar-2003
To many observers, interactive TV is starting to look like an unfulfilled marketing revolution. Potentially, iTV can bring a new dimension to advertising by adding relationship-building and transaction to what is already the most powerful brand-building medium. But operators' financial problems, over-promised and under-delivered technology and poor communication of digital's benefits have stalled mass take-up by consumers. With the current mismatch between potential and reality, is it worth investing time and money in interactive advertising?
Evidence collected by Carat strongly suggests that it is, and that iTV advertising can already deliver marketing ROI.
Although almost no-one switches to digital TV for the interactive services, Carat research with Netpoll has found that once people have access to them, they use them to an increasing degree.
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11:01:04 AM
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Tuesday, June 10, 2003 |
Autonomy (Nasdaq: AUTN) announced the purchase of a small company called Virage (Nasdaq-SCM: VRGE) which they apparently intend to integrate with their existing Dremedia division. Dremedia software uses Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating LayerTM (IDOL) technology and enhances it by providing a technology platform that automatically analyzes, understands, and manipulates video and audio content.
Acquiring Virage adds a software product suite that covers the creative side of video production, Internet publishing and webcasting. Virage is headquartered in San Mateo, California, and was established in 1995. It's products include:
- VS ProductionTM for professional video production
- VS PublishingTM for developing content into compelling Internet programming
- VS WebcastingTM for planning and producing interactive, live and on-demand webcasts
The company has ~400 customers including: Cisco Systems, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Harvard University, NASCAR, Oracle Corporation, Pfizer, the United States Senate, Xerox and others. www.virage.com.
Here's an article in The Register about the acquisition. Autonomy swoops on Virage. Video Play [The Register]
8:24:45 AM
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Sony plugs TV into Vaio notebooks. The Japanese company looks to boost its PC fortunes with a notebook that lets people pause and record live TV for future playback and another that packs Centrino wireless technology. [CNET News.com]
4:03:06 PM
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Yesterday at NCTA, Microsoft introduce Microsoft® TV Foundation Edition what they descirbe as "a new digital TV software platform designed to help cable operators get more value from on-demand and other digital TV services"
They simultaneously announced support (http://www.microsoft.com/tv/mstvIndustrySupportPR.mspx) for the platform from cable industry vendors Motorola, Inc., SeaChange, Concurrent Computer Corp., MetaTV Inc., Two Way TV Ltd. and Advanced Digital Broadcast Ltd.
They also announced a customer win (http://www.microsoft.com/tv/cablevisionselectsmspr.mspx) for the software platform with Televisa's Cablevision (CVC) subsidiary, one of Mexico City's largest cable MSO with ~450k subscribers announcing that they will adopt it.
3:10:46 PM
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Friday, May 02, 2003 |
Disney has announced a service called Moviebeam which will deliver "VOD" movies to consumer homes via analog broadcast tv signals using datacasting technologies. The service requires a side-car TV settop box that will apparently have enough [PVR-like] memory to store up to 100 movie titles [~150 to 200 GB]. Disney plans to test the service in Salt Lake City apparently via its ABC affiliate station there.
This brings up the interesting question again about whether or not cable operators are obligated to carry the "datacasting" information embedded in the ABC television signal and thus to enable the use of Cable's network to compete with their own VOD services without any compensation from a broadcaster like Disney?
11:32:23 AM
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Monday, April 21, 2003 |
GTN, essentially an advertising agency which produces advertising [mainly for the Auto Industry] and Starnet [MediaDVX division which delivers digital ads via satellite, owned by the Lenfest people] have created an integrated system which uses an order entry system for adertising [owned by GTN] to enable ad agencies to direct digital ads to the right recipients by aligning the GTN order entry information with delivery information in MediaDVX's satellite distribution system. The integrated system does at least three important things:
- It allows ad agencies to maintain control of digital ads from the time the ad leaves the "creative" computers until they reach the local broadcast or cable ad insertion points via MediaDVX's satellite system.
- It reduces the time to deliver digital ads from days or hours, to minutes.
- It thereby increases the amount of time available to the agency to create and customize the ads for local market conditions, essentially creating something like a "just-in-time" ad delivery system.
9:31:15 AM
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Friday, April 04, 2003 |
This is an interesting analysis of the DRM issues surrounding Windows Media9.
Microsoft's digital media mogul. Dave Fester, general manager of Microsoft's Windows Media, needs to balance the use of digital media to boost Windows sales with the piracy concerns of the entertainment industry. [CNET News.com]
10:29:39 AM
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Thursday, April 03, 2003 |
"The Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), a global alliance of nearly 40 industry leaders in content management, distribution infrastructure, and streaming media, today announced that it is releasing for peer review a new content protection specification which will serve as the technical foundation for the secure delivery of streaming and download media content."
[See press release http://www.isma.tv/pub/resources/pr.shtml?PR1011.txt ]
1:55:15 PM
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Thursday, March 27, 2003 |
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Tuesday, March 18, 2003 |
CNet reporting on Microsoft's launch of Media2Go software at CeBit.
12:34:20 PM
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A fight is brewing between a Coalition of so-called broadband "users" [comprised primarily of companies interested in access to broadband for Internet e-commerce] and the Cable industry. The link is to the Coalition's recent exparte filing with the FCC
12:20:30 PM
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Friday, March 07, 2003 |
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Thursday, March 06, 2003 |
The basic principal is that clelbrities are traded on an exchange like stocks. Their value is influenced by player trading which in turn is influenced by, among other things, what the BBC broadcasts every Friday night at 10:30pm on BBC3. A very clever idea and apparently a sensation in the UK. Here's the link to the Celebdaq website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/celebdaq/index.shtml
10:23:43 AM
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Wednesday, March 05, 2003 |
ZDF's Bruno Krüger [Technische Grundsatzangelegenheiten] reporting to DVB members about the first case of complete cutover from analog to digital broadcast, had the following news from Berlin today...
"Since the early morning of last Friday, 28.02.03, people in Berlin can receive 22 TV programmes via DVB-T. Most of the former PAL channels have been converted to digital. 6 DVB-T multiplexes with data-rates of about 13 Mbit/s each are already on air. The number of channels will even improve when four remaining PAL channels will be switched off later this year.
About 150.000 households without cable or satellite reception are affected. More than 70.000 DVB-T set-top-boxes have been sold so far. Prices start from 169,- EURO.
The switch-off of analogue TV in Berlin is unique. There had been no experiences how people would cope with the hard switch-off of analogue TV. It even turned out, that many of the people, who are affected, weren't sufficiently aware about the situation.
All in all, the big step towards digital television in Berlin went well: No public uprising, a mainly constructive press echo, properly working transmission networks and till now only minor and solvable problems. We directly talk with the people and assist them. Only very, very few of those people complain about receiver cost and insufficient system quality. The majority are really happy and regard DVB-T as a progress with enhanced reception quality and a lot more programmes."
12:11:26 PM
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An interesting summary of what Google is by a guy named Jason Kottke: "Google is not a search company." via Kevin Werbog's weblog. [Werblog]
10:48:40 AM
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Tuesday, March 04, 2003 |
An interesting article in Cableworld about the difference between Broadcast Network and Cable Network advertising rates. Among other things, Cableworld points out that cable advertising CPM's are half that of the Networks in prime time...
"According to Nielsen Media Research's Monitor-Plus service, which measures ad spending in all major media, buyers spent $21.10 to reach each 1,000 viewers in the key 18-to-49-year-old demographic (called cost-per-thousand, expressed as CPM in agency jargon) during prime time on broadcast, compared to $10.60 on cable."
12:08:59 PM
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TV Week.com is reporting that the Game Show Network is looking to do interactive applications in the one-screen [as apposed to two-screen TV/PC approach] to take advantage of all the digital settop boxes that are already deployed. http://www.tvweek.com/technology/030303gameshow.html
11:36:59 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Douglas L Ross.
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