I recently started contributing to a new media website called Pajamas Media. Here is the original link to a recent article I posted on the coming fight between Adobe and Microsoft for the standard internet software platform.
I recently moved to a place with some more space and land south of San Jose. It just so happens that where I moved to all though not far from San Jose is still the country by all definitions. Including its lack of Internet access. I exhausted ALL my options for high speed broadband before having to go with what I feared the most which is satellite broadband. During this transition I was without any Internet connection in our new space for almost a week. It has been a long time since I was that un-connected. I believe in unplugging from time to time but there is a difference between a conscious choice to unplug and the inability to be plugged in. I never realized how almost completely useless my computers are without the Internet. That is a whole topic of conversation for another day. About mid-week I figured all though the lots are quite a bit bigger where I moved to there has to be some neighbors with a open wi-fi connection somewhere. So I grabbed my computer and told my wife I was going on my quest for the Internet. So with my Mac flipped open constantly scanning for wireless networks I traveled up and down our whole property hoping to find an open connection. Finally I found one, so I grabbed a chair and planted under a tree to do my e-mail and surf the Internet.
I went over to Roku's offices in late April to meet with Roku founder Anthony Wood and several other team members to discuss this new Netflix player they developed. I've met with Anthony many times before over the past few years and always found him to be intelligent and forward thinking. He was one of the original founders of Replay TV and for that I have always given him a great deal of credit. So anything Roku puts out I am generally interested in to start. I had a rough idea of what I was going to see going into the meeting. During the course of the meeting I was pleasantly surprised with this new Netflix player by Roku that focused on Netflix. Another quick bit of history is that Anthony did a short stint at Netflix working on some of their set top box integration strategies. All of that I feel is relevant due to the rational behind this box and where it may go.
The Roku box itself is quite simple and tremendously easy to set up. The user interface is fantastic and one of my favorite features is the way is rewinds and fast forwards. Because there is no drive the entire experience is done by streaming the content right to the box. So initially one would think fast forwarding and going back in a movie would be difficult and painfully slow. That is not the case with this box. Roku worked closely with Netflix at the software layer to allow you to see scenes in the timeline of the movie both forward and back that you can simply choose to go forward to or go back to. When you do this it simply buffers the stream from that spot and then starts right where you selected. Quite nice and quite pleasant.
One other feature I really like is how it handles episodic content. Episodic content is my favorite feature of Netflix streaming and the Roku player handles it well by letting you select any of the episodes in a series and lets you pick up where left off and any current episode you were watching.
Lastly I liked more then I thought using the computer to add content instead of using the TV. My biggest beef with the first Apple TV was that it required iTunes to add and discover content to view on the TV. I felt I would have the same feeling with the Roku player however that was not the case. Probably because I was familiar with the Netflix site to add movies to my queue I found this experience to be quite nice. One could envision in the future using your PC to configure your DVR recorded shows etc. None the less there was something familiar about using the PC and the web to configure the streaming queue and movies or TV shows added to the TV interface in less then 15 seconds.
Now I am sure people will be harsh on this category, no one wants another box in the living room we know. Is this player a DMA in the future who knows. What I do know is that most other box's that extend video or media to the TV have not faired so well. I believe that is because they do so much and do not have a tangible use case attached to them that most consumers can understand. This is not the case with the Netflix player by Roku. I feel it is the simplicity of this box that will lead to it's success. I also feel that it may very well help to spur the thinking behind things like Vudu and Apple TV in the future. Once consumers get a handle on a simple use case then they will start asking what else can I do like see my photos or view networked content.
Roku can easily go that way in the future but for now simplicity will be what moves this box into consumers homes.
I was having a conversation the other day with one of our clients around the future of television. We were all talking about observations we have all made about the broadcast industry and where we think it is going. I came away from the conversation confused about the paradox in which we find ourselves with most of America. We pay money, most people $50 or more, for something that was once free and the experience has not changed. Think about that, it used to be free that is where advertising came in to subsidize the broadcast costs. So TV was free but advertising supported. However now we pay for almost exactly the same thing, over 70% of the most common channels are the main networks, and we still see ads.
So I am asking the question to what I am paying for and why do I see ads if I am paying for it. This I believe will be a driving factor as digital TV becomes the standard. New services will show up that we pay for because of the value of brings. Advertisers will need to get creative if they want to get our attention in the future.
Connected photo frames are one of the areas I am watching and evaluating very closely these days. After speaking with a number of companies that are leading some innovative efforts around connected photo frames I am convinced that the single purpose connected photo frames will be a small part of the connected home ecosystem. I say that because once you put a simple single purpose photo frame in a location you start thinking what else can I do with the frame.
Take this new device from GE that is also a landline phone with photo caller ID. This is a great example of a photo frame that adds value to another device in the home. Pandigital also makes one specifically for the kitchen that is a photo frame/TV but is also tied to the internet for recipe's. This is a display with a dual purpose but it is also specific to the room it is in, the kitchen, and adds value to what goes on in that room.
However it is not device that does everything. I feel that if a photo frame is sold that does to much it may not be successful. But if there is specific use cases that consumers can relate to and its functionality is simple then I feel they will be successful. The challenge for makers of these frames to move beyond general purpose frames and into more specific frames. This means they must design features and services that assume these displays will be used in a specific room for a specific purpose.
This is not the way OEM's tend to think however I feel it is a critical mental step if anyone wants to be successful in the future consumer connected digital ecosystem.
In many of our corporate presentations to our clients we describe how we believe we are in the middle of this journey from analog to digital. We explain how the first block of this 50 yr journey was bringing digital technologies to the enterprise. Then we explain how the next 25 yrs will be the journey to bring digital technologies to the masses. I feel as though a more fundamental observation needs to be made about this transition so that we can understand the impacts of digital technology in the future and the value that it will bring to the masses.
The observation in which I am referring to is the fact then when a digital technology presents itself in the market we always move from a linear experience to a nonlinear experience. Meaning something that was experienced in one way may now be experienced in many different ways.
In the business realm the entrance of digital technologies directly increased efficiency and productivity. This was observed early on with the first application on the personal computer assisting in moving away from paper based solutions in the workforce (linear) to digital forms of databases, communication, accounting, etc (nonlinear). I recall my first job in 1997 at Cypress Semiconductor was to completely overhaul the system of document control which was all paper based and convert it to a digital system all through the corporate Intranet. This move from linear to nonlinear experiences or processes greatly impacted and will continue to impact the enterprise of tomorrow.
In the consumer realm we have seen only a peek at what the move to digital will bring. Tivo was a good first example. Before Tivo television could only be viewed at a certain time, on a certain day, in a certain place. Unless of course you were an expert with the VCR at which point you inconveniently and many times unsuccessfully, in an analog way, time and possibly place shifted the one show you recorded. Or you could be a complete geek and have two VCR's in order to capture multiple shows. None the less this was a cumbersome process. Then Tivo entered the picture and changed the model of what was the only way to experience TV to a whole new experience of possibilities and new ways to consume television content.
We are also only beginning to see the digital shift and its impact on communication with our current cell phones. We believe we are on the verge of a mobile/computing revolution that will impact greatly many linear experiences consumer have in the world and create new nonlinear possibilities.
Suffice it to say we believe that we are at a inflection point that we will look back on in the many years ahead. Our observations will continue to amaze us at the amount of impact digital technologies had on the many aspects of our life's that we never knew existed.
I wanted to highlight a book I have been reading called the Paradox of Choice. This book has a lot to do with consumer psychology, something I have been studying a lot lately.
The premise of the book is about how too many choices, or really to many complicated choices, actually dis-satisfy consumers instead of actually satisfy them.
I will be putting out a Brief of this book to all our clients highlighting some important things as it relates to consumer choice and how consumers make decisions about products. So if you are a paying client of ours you will get it soon. If not and you are interested feel free to e-mail me.
I was just observing post CTIA that it has almost been a year since the iPhone release and I still haven't seen any device that is better then the iPhone. Apple needs to get a lot of credit for being SO far ahead of the curve. I feel like this is in part due to the mobile industry first and foremost underestimating Apple and second because for quite some time there has been a lack of innovation in the mobile industry.
I recall having some conversations with friends/colleagues of mine who are close to the wireless industry. They affirmed my observation that the operators underestimated Apple. They felt for sure the iPhone would not be as revolutionary as it turned out to be. Suffice it to say when the iPhone was released mass panic hit the other operators who were in instant search of a device that could compete.
Here we are almost a year later and still nothing comes close to the iPhone experience. Now in a few month's Apple will release its version 2 of the software and potentially a 3G iPhone. I have been privileged to, under NDA, see some of the upcoming devices and feel that toward the end of the 08 year we may see some things that offer equally compelling mobile experiences.
The biggest challenge however is that Apple does not stand still and has established itself as one of, if not THE, most innovative consumer products company in the market.
Just as more and more people are discovering Facebook, observed by the number of friend requests I get from colleagues , I am already beginning to wonder if the end has begun for Facebook. Not only has Facebook struggled and not shown a single compelling model to make money they are also struggling to keep people engaged for any period of time. Some of my latest research with over 100 social power users under the age 25, that I have observed follow and set the trends in social media, have begun alluding that they are spending less and less time on Facebook and on average less then 2 minutes at a time. They may still “check” it several times a day but again only a short burst. This does not bode well for advertisers because the future of advertising on the web will rely more on integrated efforts as opposed to banner ads or static advertising as we see today.
On top of all that Facebook does not have history on its side. If history proves true that once a market, in this case the market is social networking, reaches maturity it moves from standardization to segmentation. In short the market fragments. This is exactly what I think will happen with social networks. I have said before and still believe that social networks will number 1) become more community centric then networking centric and 2) much more focused or specialized.
All of that being said I am not sure what the future holds for Facebook. Facebook is at a number of crossroads and they need to figure out very quickly how to re-engage with people and keep them engaged by making it possible to have meaningful relationships with another human. This is the difference between a networking mentality and a community mentality. I particularly have not seen or heard a shred of visionary thinking from any top exec at Facebook that leads me to believe they have any clue where they are going. I am also quite excited about a few other communities that are popping up, which will remain nameless as they are in stealth mode currently, that may very well demonstrate what the future of online communities may look like.
