Think Forward

ESPN Mobile and a few ways they could stay in business.

I have been on the record saying I am not a big fan of the MVNO strategy. Even though I think Helio and Amp'd have the best offerings I always loved the ESPN service. My biggest beaf was that I could not use it. Nor could any other real sports fan with disposable income who work in corporate America because most of us use Treo's, Blackberries and other smart devices that keep us connected to work 24/7.

So my advice to mobile ESPN is dump the hardware not the business. ESPN Mobile is a sweeet service and if I could load that app on my smartphone I would pay an EXTRA $10 a month on top of my $50 a month EVDO data plan just to get all the juicy sports info as it happens. So please please ESPN Mobile dump the hardware but take your little Java app and UI and let me buy it and subscribe to you for a monthly fee.

My biggest beef with MNVo's was I didn't like having them choose my device. I would rather pick my device then pick my UI or apps. So if you know anyone at ESPN mobile please pass them this post.

iTunes Movies off to a good start

Bob Iger announced that just after a week of offering Disney movies for sale on iTunes that they have sold 125,000 movies equaling an additional income of around $1 Million dollars. Iger said that due to the iTunes movie service he expects to take in an additional $50 Million in revenue in the first year. The key word here is additional revenue. This is a revenue stream that did not exist before. Disney was the first to unlock the door to the digital goldmine that they and a boat-load of others are sitting on. Similar to some comments I made around the distribution of TV shows through iTunes that all who don’t participate are leaving money on the table. No studio should think that digital downloads will cannibalize existing revenue streams. Like Iger said this is additional revenue and my advice to the studios, as it has always been, is to not leave money on the table. Jump in full steam and be aggressive with your library because consumers will eat it up.

According to a recent Accenture study globally 57% of people surveyed wanted to be able to download movies, tv shows and other video content to their TV. Of that 57%, 47% were in the US. This just goes to show you demand is growing for using your TV to acquire the kind of content desirable on a TV screen. All though there are still some challenges to accomplishing this at least we know demand is growing.

Thoughts on Apple's Announcement

As always I thoroughly enjoyed the Apple Event yesterday. Apple has continued to innovate within their product line and their software offering to provide the best experience for all of us Mac users. For me the biggest two announcements were the iTunes Movie Store additions to iTunes and the code named “iTV” product demonstration. So let’s start with the Movie Store.

Obviously we knew it was only a matter of time before they added movies. I was a little surprised they launched it without a means to truly enjoy the high quality wide screen movie outside of the computer. Meaning the new higher quality widescreen movies are not optimized for the current iPod Video. I viewed a demo of a movie purchased on the store playing on the current iPod video and the large black bars on the top and bottom were not pleasing. That being said let’s hope a new video iPod that is optimized for movies is on the horizon. I am very anxious to see how consumers respond to the video store. I myself prefer to buy my movies at retail and digitize them myself at DVD quality. Which leads us to iTV

Obviously Apple did something very different by not really announcing a product but more making their intentions known. The concept behind iTV is obviously nothing new. I have been able to stream pictures, music and movies to my TV for the past 5 years. What is new is that Apple has put a rock solid user interface on the TV to consume that digital content with. As well as tied it to the Internet for additional content feeds as well. Where Apple has really put the pressure on everyone else with this space is on the UI and the marriage to the leading digital content store in the world. No one else has that good of a UI and no one else makes it that easy from your TV to go out and get movies, music, trailers and a lot more I’m sure when they are done. At the very least Apple has helped generate consumer awareness of the need to move content off the PC and consume it in the living room. More interestingly Apple has shown me a path to not need a cable provider or at least not watch TV live any more. I am not sure if they will ever go down this road but if prices were lowered accordingly I could see myself subscribing to NBC, CBS etc for nominal fees to access all their content in the future. Or use the iTunes store as a way of catch up TV where I don’t need a DVR any longer.

There are many great concepts at play with this category and a very bright future. Again where others in this category should be worried is at retail. Apple can build a living room into all their stores and really present the best display for people on how easy it is within the Apple product ecosystem. No other brand can trust Best Buy or others to treat their product ecosystem like that.

My Predictions for Apple's September 12th event

I was pleasantly surprised to return from several weeks of vacation and receive an invite to Apple's September 12th event called "It's Showtime." The Apple events are always so entertaining and they are one of the few events I genuinely enjoy attending them. So in this post I intend to put my best foot forward and throw out my predictions of what the “big” announcements will be. Let me first set the stage for what we have to know about Apple so far and what they have in the mix. The first thing we have to remember is that this may not be the only event Apple has before the end of the year. The next thing we have to remember is that they also need to have some big announcements for MacWorld. Especially this year because it conflicts with the first day of CES so lot’s of media will need to be enticed to be at Macworld this year. So what are our options for next Tuesday’s announcement? In no particular order they are:

• An Apple cell phone
• A 4 inch wide-screen iPod
• Core-duo Mac Book Pro’s
• New Nano’s with new colors
• An iTunes Movie store
• An update to Airport express which supports video

Since Apple quietly updated their iMac and Mac Mini lines it is doubtful these products will make a splash at the event. So out of the above 6 which could it be? Well let me start by what I don’t think it will be. The first is the Apple cell phone. From what I gather this product is a MacWorld or early spring type product. I am not convinced Apple has this product completely flushed out from a service standpoint mainly and they are still working that end of the product. I also think it is too early for Macbook Pro updates so I don’t think it is that either.

I think we will see either the Nano in new colors and more storage whether HD or Flash I don’t know but definitely more storage. I think the possibility of the iPod Mini being resurrected is a good chance as well. I also think we will see the Debut of the iTunes Movie store complete with Disney (obviously) and possibly Warner Bros. and Lions Gate movies along with movies libraries from HBO, Showtime and others at a minimum. Those are the most aggressive studios so far so others may hop on but no guarantees. Then comes the one more thing. I also think we will see the new iPod video with 4 inch widescreen and 80GB storage drive. If it is not this event there will be another event because this is definitely as Q4 product I strongly believe we will see this year. Plus they will not launch the movie store without this product so if we see the movie store we see the new iPod video. Then I also believe there will be another “one more thing” and that is the Airport express that supports photo’s and video. Apple’s position with the store will by now you can buy movies, take them with you with the new iPod video and watch them on your TV where they should be consumed. The same applies to Photos. The question for me with the movie store and the Airport express is what quality will the video be in Hi-Def or Standard Def. If I am buying a movie I want the quality to be at least DVD quality to my TV. Given today standard B/G cannot support DVD quality video without some QOS attached I don’t think Apple has that nailed. So I am guessing that as cool as the Airport Express with video will be it will still be best for Music and the newly supported photos. Video will be neat but doubtful that it is DVD quality of wireless. Let’s just hope that it will let you use a wired connection for us that have a wired home so we can move HD and other quality video to the TV. This is all assuming the studios let Apple sell or rent movies from the store in HD in the first place. Which other then Disney is doubtful.

So there are my thoughts and we will see come Tuesday.