Platforms

Don’t bet on a Netflix sale

December 13, 2011
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Video Streaming Another Netflix bubble burst: On Monday, its shares soared more than 6 percent on reports that Verizon was in talks to acquire the video streaming and DVD-by-mail company. By the closing bell Tuesday, the shares had given back nearly all of those gains after several analysts shot down the initial reports.

Still, hope springs eternal, and the shares were up again in the after hours market, perhaps on speculation that even if Verizon isn’t a buyer for the currently beleaguered service, someone else might be.  Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

The Verizon rumors gained traction initially because Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam acknowledged publicly last week that the telco was interested in the online video streaming business, going so far as to admit to kicking the tires at Hulu when it was being shopped. But of all the potential suitors for Netflix, Verizon is among the least likely.

Most of Netflix’s growth over the next several years is likely to come from outside the U.S., which is not a good fit for Verizon strategically. It also certainly doesn’t want any part of Netflix’s DVD Read more »

Microsoft’s non-disruptive disruption

December 5, 2011
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Digital Living Room Microsoft will roll out a major makeover of Xbox Live Tuesday, adding a raft of new OTT video and music services. The update will also deliver a new user interface and enhanced voice-recognition capability for the Xbox Kinect platform, enabling Kinect owners to control their Xbox Live experience through a combination of voice and gesture control.

While Microsoft is hardly the only technology giant looking to plant its flag in the living room its approach is notably different from that of Apple or Google, to name two of the other leading contenders.

The first iteration of Google TV represented a bald attempt to establish browser-based search as primary means of finding and accessing video content. The reason for the emphasis on search was obvious: Google dominates the search business and has a proven and highly efficient engine for monetizing search results through advertising. Read more »

Face(book)ing the music

September 20, 2011
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Cloud Facebook is rumored to be set to unveil major new media-related features at the f8 developer conference on Thursday, including partnerships with seven or eight leading music streaming services and the introduction of a music/movie/TV “ticker” to home pages that will let your friends know what you’re watching or listening to.

According to reports, a key element of the new streaming music integrations will be audio “bridging” between otherwise competing services. The idea is that, if you’re listening to Rdio, and a track goes up on your profile, a friend who uses MOG for music would be able to click on the track and listen to the same song even if they’ve never subscribed to Rdio.

It’s not clear from the reports exactly how that bridging will work, from either a technical or a rights perspective. Will competing streaming services need to have identical rights deals with the labels for a bridge to work? Will Facebook itself host and stream any music? How will conflicting DRMs and authentication systems be reconciled?  Read more »

Why publishers should embrace Amazon’s Netflix for e-books plan

September 13, 2011
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Copyright As a lover of used bookstores and delighted owner of many dusty old, out-of-print volumes plucked from $2 and 3-for$5, bins I hate to hear myself say this. But if I were a publisher I would leap at Amazon’s purported plans to offer Kindle users a Netflix-like subscription plan for e-books.

Traditionally, publishers have had only two bites at the apple: the hardcover/trade paperback window, followed by the mass market paperback release. E-books have introduced a new format but it has not yet created a new release window. Instead, the e-book release is wedged in awkwardly between or alongside the traditional windows, cannibalizing both. Read more »

Taking Hulu global

September 7, 2011
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Deals The auction for Hulu has been nothing if not fluid, with bidders dropping in an out of the process and conflicting signals from the sellers as to how committed they are to selling. But with the deadline for offers fast approaching, the pool of serious bidders had boiled down to three, according to the Financial Times — Yahoo, Amazon and Dish Network — with each expected to enter a bid somewhere between $1.5 and $2.0 billion.

Until last night, that is. That’s when word broke of a possible last-minute mega-bid from Google — previously thought to have bowed out of the bidding — that could scramble the whole process yet again. Sources told Peter Kafka of AllThingsD that Google may be willing to put up “a couple billion dollars more” than the purported $1.5-$2.0 billion competing bids as part of “a different [proposed] acquisition, on a larger scale.” Read more »

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