Technology360

Three New Slingboxes Formally Announced

Sling provides boxes that let you remotely control and view from anywhere video sources in your home.  They've just announced three new ones, including one with a tuner.  This would be great for someone who travels as much as I do, but I've not bought one because I don't think my WISP will support the upstream requirements.  Link:  Zatz Not Funny...

Also see Slingbox PRO, Slingbox A/V, & Slingbox Tuner Performance Review in Sling Community.  --Dennis

Marketing Outpaces Ad Spending ...

Joe Mandese writes:

Non-advertising-based forms of marketing -- especially newer sectors such as branded entertainment, event marketing and experiential marketing - have emerged as the fastest growing segment of the media economy, outpacing advertising, as well as consumer and industrial spending on media. The finding, which comes from the 2006 edition of the Communications Industry Forecast being released this week by Veronis Suhler Stevenson, comes as strong evidence that U.S. marketers and their agencies are shifting spending into forms of marketing that have tangible measures of ROI associated with them. It also suggests that Madison Avenue's shift from conventional ad-based media planning toward marketing-based communications planning is also having an effect, and that the definition of media is expanding well beyond traditional formats like TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. Perhaps most significantly, much of the shift toward new forms of marketing spending, especially the kind of experiential marketing aimed at active young adults, is a sign that marketers need to find new ways of reaching some important consumer segments. ... [link added]

Link:  MediaDailyNews.

Scott Karp has some helpful commentary on this in, Marketing Services Is the Future of Media.  Link:  Publishing 2.0.  --Dennis

Internet Explorer 7: Is Your Site Ready?

I'm a big fan of RSS and a big fan of Internet Explorer 7's implementation of it in particular.  I think us broadcasters will look back in a few years and say that this was at least as important a development for the distribution of programming (though perhaps not in the 30-minute multiples to which we're wedded today) as was the advent of digital broadcasting.  Today, RSS is too geeky for mass adoption (right click, Copy Link Location in Firefox or Copy Shortcut in IE, paste it in the subscription box -- and what the heck does RSS mean anyway?).  But IE7 cuts through most of the geekiness.  There are other developments in IE7, of course.  Timothy Dungan, who does web development for Southern Oregon Public Television and for KIXE in Redding, CA, has a terrific article with this title about getting your web site ready for IE7.  It's coming fast.  Link:  ptvGuy.  --Dennis

Desperately Seeking Portable HD

Skip Pizzi writes about the impact of power consumption on practical portable digital receivers:

... Although the common wisdom among consumer electronics manufacturers holds that tired old analog radio has no place in slick new digital handhelds, a recent survey of handheld users found that radio was their most wanted additional feature. So it would make perfect sense that next-gen handhelds incorporate new digital radio formats, and thus they could find their way into the hearts and minds of future audiences. It all sounded great - except for one big, and largely unforeseen problem: the heavy power consumption of digital tuners.  ¶    This dirty little secret is simultaneously being discovered in the terrestrial digital broadcast, satellite radio and wireless telecom/mobile TV environments. The broadband OFDM receivers that virtually all of these devices use are current hogs - at least in their current implementations. ...

Link:  Radio World.

Larry Grossman on Digital Opportunity Investment Trust

Larry Grossman is a former president of PBS and also had a long distinguished career in commercial television.  He's co-chair (with former FCC chair Newton Minnow) of the Digital Promise Project, which is sponsoring an initiative to create a Digital Opportunity Investment Trust (DO IT) that would utilize modern digital distribution technologies to support the public good.  The initiative has been around awhile, so if you're wondering what they've been up to lately (or have never heard of it), check out a speech that Grossman gave a few days ago at the University of Nebraska.  Link:  Digital Promise [pdf].  --Dennis

Arbitron adds public radio

Arbitron has announced that it will begin reporting qualified public radio stations in its ratings books effective this fall.  Arbitron has collected the information for years, but never included it in The Book.  Mark Ramsey writes about the implications of this to public and commercial radio.  Link:  Hear 2.0.  --Dennis

Three Attributes of Open Content

I attended the WGBH Open Content and Public Broadcasting conference last week in Cambridge where it was my privilege to share the first panel with professor James Boyle of the Duke Law School where he was co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain.  I was asked to tee up the topic, which I attempted to do by talking about three attributes of open content: "free as in free beer," "free as in free speech," and open distribution.  To read my remarks, download the attached pdf or click on the Continue reading link below.  --Dennis

Pew: The Future of the Internet

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has just released part 2 [pdf] of its report on the future of the Internet, authored by Janna Quitney Anderson.  They write:

A survey of internet leaders, activists, and analysts shows that a majority agree with predictions that by 2020:

• A low-cost global network will be thriving and creating new opportunities in a “flattening” world.
• Humans will remain in charge of technology, even as more activity is automated and “smart agents” proliferate. However, a significant 42% of survey respondents were pessimistic about humans’ ability to control the technology in the future. This significant majority agreed that dangers and dependencies will grow beyond our ability to stay in charge of technology. This was one of the major surprises in the survey.
• Virtual reality will be compelling enough to enhance worker productivity and also spawn new addiction problems.
• Tech “refuseniks” will emerge as a cultural group characterized by their choice to live off the network. Some will do this as a benign way to limit information overload, while others will commit acts of violence and terror against technology-inspired change.
• People will wittingly and unwittingly disclose more about themselves, gaining some benefits in the process even as they lose some privacy.
• English will be a universal language of global communications, but other languages will not be displaced. Indeed, many felt other languages such as Mandarin, would grow in prominence.

Author Anderson is from Elon University in North Carolina, which is hosting a related 6,000-page site:  Imagining the Internet: A History and Forecast.

Part 1 [pdf] was issued in January 2005 and was authored by Susannah Fox, Anderson and Rainie.  --Dennis

Users want video downloads on the TV

Jacqui Chang writes:

Users want more control over the content they watch on their television sets   according to an Accenture report released this morning. Over 10,000 Internet   users were surveyed in China, South Korea, Italy, Canada, United Kingdom, Taiwan,   Germany, United States and Japan—with 1,609 being from the United States—to   get a feeling for what consumers want in their future "digital homes. The   results found that nearly half (47 percent) of those surveyed in the US want   to be able to download movies, TV shows, and other video content to their television   sets, with even more of those surveyed globally (54 percent) wishing for such   technology. ...

Link:  Ars Technica.

Is TV really the killer app for WiMAX?

Om Malik writes:

... MobiTV, well known for its television-to-the-mobile phone service, says it is now going to work with the WiMAX forum, and will participate in a TV-over-WiMAX trial in some Northern California cities. MobiTV will also show off an experimental network built with Navini Networks’ Ripwave gear that can deliver HD television. ...

Link:  GigaOM.

Sam Churchill has more in WiMAX Television?  Link:  DailyWireless. 

Updated 24 Sep. 2006:
Diane Mermigas does her usual penetrating analysis of the Murdoch-Malone deal on DirecTV, which is a significant indicator for the issue above, in Murdoch-Malone deal is glimpse at the future.  Link:  Hollywood Reporter.  --Dennis