It was almost two years ago now that Apple dropped the ‘Computer’ from its corporate name, reflecting the company’s growing presence in the consumer electronics space.  We believe the next iPod-like disruptive CE devices will be an completely new generation of network-enabled TV and set-top hardware offering direct and simple access to internet video ‘baked-in’ - and we believe some compelling implementations are right around the corner.

Meanwhile, consider an exchange from a panel at last week’s ‘Future of Television East‘ conference in NY: asked whether the emergence of such hardware would have much impact on the (currently computer-centric) internet video space, a panel member representing a major software firm essentially reduced the issue to that of merely a difference in user interface ergonomics  - keyboard/mouse vs. remote.  To paraphrase the panel member, “the user will get to the content whatever way the user gets to the content” - but yet minutes later, this same panel member was admitting that user uptake of their internet video TV technology was “not happening as quickly as we’d all like to see”.

Why is that?  Well, if a company’s solution to the problem of getting video from the internet to the TV involves putting a personal computer between the television and the internet and administering it all from the desktop rather than from the couch, they are just not going to see much uptake from Joe the Plumber – instead, the average user will wait for a ‘lean back’ solution to become available, saving him or her from having to get up and touch the computer at all.  Although this is precisely the point at which we currently find ourselves, we don’t see the situation lasting very much longer - again, we believe internet–enabled TV hardware will be the big story of 2009 (one of the issues that’s kept this from happening so far is the development of a useable motion/pointer remote, but that’s on its way too - more on that here).

Clearly, there are major ease-of-use differences between the personal computer/media server internet TV model and the (as yet unavailable) embedded hardware internet TV model - in terms of set-up, user experience, and maintenance.  But while the various software incumbents might have a stake in downplaying these differences, they fail to recognize the inevitability of standalone internet video devices at their own peril – because this new generation of hardware will also require a new generation of lightweight system software and highly efficient video codecs/players (a potentially substantial new market).  Furthermore, to the extent internet-enabled TV and set-top hardware is successful in the broader mass market, a new user application market could also emerge for these ‘quasi-computers’ (Apple’s App Store is a good example of an appropriately simple and elegant approach to distribution and administration for such an entirely new software model).

Amazon has an industry-leading online retail business to support its ‘Video on Demand’ internet video initiative. Netflix has an industry-leading DVD rental business to support its ‘Watch Instantly’ internet video initiative.  The iTunes video service?  Apple is, well, Apple.   And Movielink is owned (and supported) by Blockbuster.  Alone among the major video services, relative old-timer CinemaNow was out there by itself in the still very nascent long-form premium content internet video space.

Until yesterday.

As Sonic Solutions’ Chief Technologist Jim Taylor was sitting on a Future of Television East panel here in New York yesterday, his company was announcing the acquisition of CinemaNow.   Known for the Roxio DVD authoring software, Sonic had recently chosen CinemaNow as the storefront service partner for their Qflix DVD-burning system (CinemaNow’s other main partner to date is HP, which offers direct access to CinemaNow from their MediaSmart line of HD TVs and Connect set-top box - in fact, both ship with $20 CinemaNow coupons).

Since we believe the next phase of internet video will be about long-form premium content accessed directly from dedicated  network-enabled CE hardware, we were particularly interested to read Sonic Solutions’ CEO David Cook’s take on the move:  “With broadband-connected consumer electronics hitting the market in ever greater numbers, there is a growing need for a service that gives consumers one-click access to premium entertainment on any device in the digital home.  The combination of CinemaNow’s content and embedded device strategy with Sonic’s technical prowess and broad PC and CE distribution promises to fulfill CinemaNow’s original mission.”

A smart move for Sonic Solutions…  unlike the current Qflix system (which requires a PC), look for a combined Sonic/CinemaNow to offer Qflix-enabled hardware with embedded access to CinemaNow - no computer needed.   Such a device could compare very favorably to an AppleTV or Amazon/TiVo solution.

I’ve long been of the opinion that longer-form (professionally produced) internet video will happen on a truly widespread scale only when the problem of getting that content over to the television is solved – and that current discussion of internet video (and how to how to best monetize it) is often based on two false premises:

1. The personal computer will continue to be the primary internet video delivery device.
2. Internet video is about short- and mid-form content.

Such discussions often completely fail to adequately recognize how profoundly game-changing direct access to the internet from the next generation of TVs and set-top boxes will be.  In other words, while short form internet video (user-generated or otherwise) will always be a workplace diversion, the main event has not happened yet - we’re still in merely a transitional, evolutionary phase of the process - a process which will end at the couch, not the desk.

Where are we now?   Several major CE manufacturers are currently offering their first generation of standalone internet-enabled devices (each partnered with one or more internet video services):

Hardware:                                Service:

• Sony Bravia, PS3               Sony Playstation Network, Amazon on Demand
• Roku                                   Netflix, more to come…
• LG                                      Netflix, more to come…
• AppleTV                             iTunes
• TiVo                                   Amazon, Netflix
• HP MediaSmart                  CinemaNow, including others
• Microsoft xBox360            xBox Live Marketplace, Netflix

The problem with the above scenario is that no computer means no web browser, which means no Flash – so each OEM wishing to offer multiple services directly via their network interface-enabled hardware (TV, DVD, PCR or set-top box) has had to implement the interface to each service partner individually – a tremendously inefficient reinventing of the wheel.

Therefore, I’ve long felt that what’s needed is a standardized technical protocol for CE hardware to interface with these multiple video services.  Last week, Reed Hastings of Neflix expressed a similar view, noting that in the absence of standardization, “Everyone’s going to have to do customer interfaces for each device”, and further, that it’s “slowing down the market tremendously.”

While the web standards we now take for granted were developed in the shelter of academic and government agency environments, there’s a huge amount of money (and an equal amount of competing agendas) at stake in the internet video space – so the development of a new standard from the ground up at this point seems highly unlikely.  Instead, an embedded web browser running Flash (and/or Microsoft’s Silverlight) sounds like the better idea (Sony has already moved in this direction, embedding the highly-regarded Opera browser into its Bravia line of network-enabled TVs).

Admittedly, though, web on the TV leaves a bad taste in the mouth – previous attempts suffered from three major issues:

• Bandwidth
• Screen resolution
• User interface

Of these three, two are already solved: most broadband connections are now capable of streaming at least SD video, and increased resolution of HD TV makes web text quite readable. The third issue alone remains: the user interface.  Recognizing this, Hastings predicts a new generation of Nintendo Wii-like pointer/motion remotes to replace the primitive up/down/left/right arrows (and four dozen other never-used buttons) on today’s remotes (interestingly, Apple has recently filed for a patent on some technology for just such a device).

Look for this to be the big story at the CES show this January…

As nice as the device is (and the more I use it, the more I like it), I’ve again found myself once again with a few thoughts on what could make the iPhone even better…

a (ahem) better network In a previous life, I wrote a fair amount of music for television commercials.  Once I was called back to do some alterations on a spot for an aerosol carpet deodorizer because of changes required by legal at the ad agency - in the commercial, the effectiveness of the product was illustrated using a (somewhat silly) ‘odor-smelling wand’ prop.  However, it was discovered that the number of (entirely fake) beeps coming from the prop didn’t accurately match the (entirely real) numbers coming from the focus group, so the spot needed to be reedited – such is the attention paid to truth in advertising and potential litigation.    How then does Apple get away with showing 3G web pages loading this quickly in their iPhone 3G ads?  (I mean, whose little blue Safari browser bar moves across that quickly?)

Good old-fashioned voice coverage is even more of an issue, though - I (along with an informal sampling of my fellow NYC iPhone users) are still occasionally suffering from the AT&T dropped call syndrome, and what’s worse is that despite having all the latest firmware upgrades, I still have to stand in the far corner of my living room to get enough bars to make a phone call from my apartment - and this is a 7 minute subway ride from Manhattan (i.e. not exactly the boondocks).   Even in the middle of New York City, coverage can be spotty:  I recently stood on the corner of 14th St. and University Place (Union Sq.) and had no voice service whatsoever (incredibly, I had to walk west along 14th St. past 5th Ave. before I had any bars).  The AT&T cell network needs some work, at least in the New York City area.

system-wide ‘undo’ It’s a little surprising the iPhone is missing a global ‘undo’ command at the operating system level, but I’m guessing it’s the result of a conscious design decision to keep the iPhone OS as lean and mean as possible (in computer science terms, a global undo requires a certain degree of ’statefulness’, but the iPhone is largely a stateless device).   However, as iPhone Apps get more interesting and powerful, the lack of an ‘undo’ command is only going to become more of an issue (and meanwhile, what if you delete an SMS conversation by mistake?)
One cute idea would be to leverage the iPhone’s onboard accelerometer (which makes how the device itself is held a user input for flipping the display axis and for certain games) - because a rapid physical shaking of the iPhone would make a neat ‘undo’ command, wouldn’t it?  (reminding us all of our childhood Etch-a-Sketch…)

system-wide text ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ Again, a pretty basic function, but one the iPhone doesn’t support.  Here’s a great mockup of how this could work – from vimeo, a video sharing site I like a lot.

axis flipping for the mail app Again, back to the accelerometer – I get a fair amount of HTML emails. While the iPhone does a good job displaying them, it would be nice to be able to hold the device lengthwise and view what are essential web pages with the wider horizontal aspect ratio - as I’m already able to do with the browser, camera roll, and video player apps (and since the functionality is already in place for those apps, it would be very easy to implement).

In general, though, while the AT&T network is a disappointment, the device itself certainly is not – and recent sales figures reflect just how popular the iPhone has become: during the last quarter, Apple sold 6.9 million units, more than were sold during all previous quarters combined. In fact, over the last quarter, the iPhone sold more than any other mobile device (smart phone or not), beating out both the (often free) Motorola Razr in the consumer space and the RIM Blackberry line in the enterprise space.  Further evidence of the iPhone’s success can be found reading between the lines of a recent blog post from a Microsoft blogger concerning the new Office 2008 web apps and cross-platform cloud computing – iPhone compatibility is given top billing, over even Mac OS compatibility.

So the iPhone is a hit - as a believer in the importance of good product design, I’m glad to see it.

The AT&T network, though, remains a work in progress - at least in our neck of the woods.

Who knew? Porn on the New York subway. But then again, wasn’t it inevitable?

The place: A crowded afternoon N train from Manhattan to Brooklyn. The culprit: a Sony PlayStation Portable held by a young man sitting and watching in solitude, yet surrounded by plenty other strap hangers trying to get home.

What exactly happened here?

The first thing that got me was the audacity of it. With his PSP packed with genuine XXX fodder, simply put, what he was watching was nothing short of hard core pornographic visual certainly not intended for public transportation.

The next thing I noticed, no one seemed to pay attention. Hence - at least for the duration of my ride - no one seemed to mind.

What about the woman next to him, seemingly asleep? Another nearby busied herself reading, of all things, scripture. There were plenty  of other men and woman immediately around us while others got on and off the train.

Now, I know New York subway commuters have long learned to mind their own business.

But the video that unfolded in front of all of us (the sound was muted) clearly lowered the bar on anyone’s standard of privacy; clearly was so out of the ordinary that for its mere ostentatiousness, I figured someone would have to bring it up.

Above and beyond my own discontent about the young man’s obvious lack of social skills, I quickly found myself rather intrigued by something else in this - the apparent disconnect between device and audience.

What used to be a consumer video experience “curbed” by the lack of technology’s reach, a TV set and a VCR simply didn’t lend itself to any practical use in full public view.

This kept anyone’s viewing choice a private matter. No matter how sexual, violent, or mundane the footage was, consumption and intent remained locked inside the home.

Fast forward, today’s “anytime anywhere” video consumption capabilities have changed the playing field. The new paradigm: Anyone’s personal video experience is super-portable, devoid of any particular time, place, and for that matter choice of companion viewers.

Think about it.

Sprint Nextel recently started delivering WiMAX-enabled wireless broadband service powerful enough to give you downlink speeds of 25 Mbps or more while driving down the highway.

Essentially an open pipe into and out of the World Wide Web, it’s going to be interesting to see what passing cars are watching in the back seats once content is no longer limited to wholesome satellite subscription services or Disney DVDs brought along for the kids.

And what about in-flight Web access, such as the service recently announced by American Airlines for select domestic trips?

No matter whether on a highway, on an airplane or inside a subway car in New York, what’s OK for the person to the left of you might be unacceptable to the one on the right.

Clearly, with the pervasive nature of digital content and enabling delivery devices, the meaning of “privacy” is undergoing change.

As to my personal opinion, I am in favor of self-regulating one’s public conduct. Anything beyond that might quickly collide with core principles such as net neutrality or freedom of speech.

Still, our old-world definition of privacy seems to be changing as more of our new world trends towards digital and portable at once.

It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.

On Wednesday morning last week, a few more people than usual were probably interested in picking up the morning paper.  However, the New York Times was nowhere to be found at many new stands here in Manhattan.   The new parallel online economy was making itself felt - papers were bought in bulk throughout the city long before rush hour, and now that historic front page can be yours, suitable for framing - Buy It Now for only $99.99.

Similarly, a CNN story this morning aired regarding the online sale of Obama inauguration tickets ,  which are intended to be distributed free of charge through members of the incoming congress (currently, VIP tickets are going for the low five figures).

These two end-runs around the intended distribution mechanism put me in mind of the situation my wife faced earlier this summer when attempting to surprise me with birthday tickets to the much in-demand iMax showing of The Dark Knight during the first week of its release (I know: best. wife. ever.)  It turns out she had been trying to buy them for days via AOL’s Moviefone service , but strangely the tickets (released in maximum lots of 5) were constantly sold out: regardless of how often (or when) she checked, there were just never any tickets available - for that particular movie, the AOL site was essentially broken.  She then checked craigslist and found out where all those tickets went: a thriving business in (drastically marked-up) iMax Batman tickets.  ‘Entrepreneurs’ were grabbing all tickets within seconds of release and were reselling them on craigslist for 3 to 4 times the original price - depending on your point of view, either a complete hijacking of the system by a unnecessary additional layer of middleman, or a shining example of capitalism at its finest.

To someone who’s just paid $80 for two tickets to a movie, it seems more the former - although of course, with the power and convenience of the internet comes the occasional disruptive gaming of the system - so chances are, this kind of thing will be with us for a while.

I still like my internet.

I’ve been thinking lately about how business issues (the shifting landscape of allegiances between companies) affects what (and when) technologies become available.

Not for nuthin’ (as they say here in New York) - here are a few thoughts…

no Flash on iPhone’s Safari browser
I think Adobe would be more than happy to write an iPhone Safari Flash player, but Apple is probably hoping the growing number of iPhone users will drive wider adoption of their Quicktime platform for streaming.  More on that here.

no Hulu-iPhone app
OK, so no Flash - but at least we get a bundled YouTube iPhone App that streams via QuickTime - because despite YouTube’s parent Google being behind the competing android smartphone platform, the two companies get along quite well, thank you (witness the iPhone’s rock solid gmail support).   Why not, then, a similar Flash-workaround Hulu iPhone App?  I imagine Hulu would love to see the swelling ranks of iPhone owners use their service (batteries permitting),  but don’t hold your breath: AT&T would have a major problem with that, because of the additonal bandwidth required (the average Hulu program is a lot longer than the average YouTube snippet).  This, by the way, is also the reason you won’t see an approved iPhone App any time soon allowing you to use the camera to shoot rudimentary video - as cool as that would be, AT&T doesn’t want us emailing anything that big around…  (although ‘jailbroken’ apps are out there if you’re brave and/or foolhardy enough to go off the Apple reservation and unlock the thing).

no Disney/Pixar content on Amazon’s ‘Video on Demand’ service
As a result of selling Pixar to Disney in 2004, Steve Jobs became Disney’s largest individual stockholder, and was given a seat on the Disney board.  iTunes video (via Apple TV) happens to compete directly with Amazon Video on Demand (via TiVo and the Sony Bravia).  Although Jobs has described Apple TV as nothing more than a ‘hobby’, could Apple have influenced Disney/Pixar not to play ball with such a direct internet video competitor?

no NBC/Universal content on Sony’s ‘Video Store’ service
NBC/Universal is the only major studio absent from the recently launched Sony Video Store service - since NBC is partnered with Microsoft on MSNBC, could NBC be a little reluctant to sign a deal with Microsoft’s game console arch rival Sony?

I’m just sayin’….

We try to keep it light here at digitalmissive.com: adventures in iPhone home repair, subway advertisements, that kind of thing…  But today’s news of numerous computers at both Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s  campaign offices being hacked earlier this year reminded me of a particularly frightening Business Week article I listened to the podcast of a few weeks ago while practicing my backhand.  So I just now did a little additional research - consider this brief timeline:

November 6, 2008: US Newsweek reports that several computers on the campaign office networks of both Obama and McCain were compromised during the summer - Trojan malware sends an unknown amount of data detailing candidate policy positions to a “foreign entity”.  FBI launches investigation.

June 11, 2008: US Virginia Representatives (and longtime China human rights critics) Frank Wolf and announces that four of his Capitol Hill PCs were compromised by malware which copied and transferred an unknown amount of data.  FBI announces attack originated from China, declines to comment further.

December, 2007:  UK Director-general of British intelligence agency MI5 sends letter to 300 British companies warning that their networks are under attack.  Announcement explicitly names “Chinese state organizations” as source.

December, 2007: US 37,000+ attempted attacks on both government and private networks reported for the year, US Congress is informed that Chinese espionage represents “the single greatest risk to the security of American technologies”.  New 40,000 person US Air Force unit created to combat problem.

September 24, 2007: US FBI announces that the  Department of Homeland Security network had been attacked by malware originating (and communicating with) China.  Although from an “unclassified” network, an unknown amount of data copied and transferred  over the past 2 (!) years.  IT contractor Unisys denies any fault,  FBI investigates.

August 27, 2007: Germany While on a state visit to China, German newsweekly Der Spiegel reports that “many” computers in  Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office (as well as those in several other ministries) were found to be infected with trojan malware communicating back to Chinese-registered URLs. A 160GB data transfer stopped in progress, how much data lost previously remains unknown.  China denies involvement.

Whew.  Nervous yet?    The most common attack method used here is ‘trojan’ malware: software embedded into files of common Microsoft Office applications such as Word or PowerPoint.  The file arrives as an attachment in an email “spoofed” to appear from a trustworthy source, and the malware executes when the user opens the file (under certain conditions malicious javascript can also launch exploits merely from the unsuspecting user visiting a malicious website, although browser and OS upgrades help prevent this).

How can it all be done so anonymously?  What helps hide the actual source of these attacks is a technology called “Dynamic DNS”.  The ‘real’ (internet-wide) DNS system is what allows human-readable names (like digitalmissive.com) to map to an actual IP address - and to geek out for a second here, it is a marvel of a distributed database (it’s really amazing how well it works).  However, most non-enterprise ISPs don’t need to worry about their customers needing URL names, so they just maintain a pool of interchangeable IP addresses that they swap around to their customers as needed - meaning they’re often changing.  How then to publicly contact a computer (i.e. from the internet)  whose address is non-static?  Enter Dynamic DNS (because who doesn’t want to host a website from their home PC? …I kid).  Anyway, think of Dynamic DNS as an additional independent layer of DNS – a private service out on the internet has a valid public name reserved for you, and a little piece of software on your PC (or your home router) regularly calls out to that service and says ‘hey this is my IP address as of right now!’   Problem solved – but that additional layer is entirely private and uncontrolled, and so can be used in a ‘rogue’ fashion.  Add to that China’s non-transparent approach to all things internet, and conditions are favorable for these anonymous attacks.

Rightly, we know little of the highly classified political and technical goings-on to address the issue – I just have to assume that it’s on the good guys’ radar and that they’re on it, even if it’s not quite on the general public’s radar yet.  Something called ‘Reverse DNS’ can help a lot, and I’m sure MS is continuing to tighten up the security of the Office file formats (although there are serious legacy-compatibility issues there) - so we’ll see.

Apologies if this is all a little upsetting - my next post will be on the new colors the iPod Nano comes in.

While we’re on the subject of record long tail voter aggregation and its impact on democracy, the unprecedented accumulation of small-size incremental financial contributions during the current US presidential campaign marks another success story for the long tail of citizen ingenuity.

According to OpenSecrets.org, over 90% of an impressive $640 million raised by the Barack Obama campaign came from individuals rather than corporations or entrenched interest groups.

And the bulk of that was contributions under $200.

Amazing what a lot of a little can accomplish in its aggreate value - to the benefit of all.

On that note, for all you digital media marketers out there (opportunistically speaking, of course), the current long tail campaign donation phenomenon clearly demonstrates the significant power of consumers’ take on ”motive and opportunity”.

From digital video and online books to for-pay widgets and Twitter posts, monetizing the long tail of any of these things depends on whether they truly matter to people and their lifes.

Meaning, if “the cause” is right, wallets open up.

It clearly worked during the recent Presidential campaign. What does that mean to future branded product campaign designs?

To be sure, way way before Chris Anderson’s pointed Wired article (re)discovered the right side of the curve for us, something as old, tried and proven as democracy knew to utilize the long tail phenomenon all along; to ensure that all, not just a select few partake in shaping government at large.

So, in many ways, we’re only coming full circle here.

Who knew? Democracy as an ingenious grass-root marketing campaign.

Glad it worked so well this time.

As it stands, this country is about to (re)discover the power of long tail voting.

Not since the 60s has the United States seen this kind of voter turnout. Individuals previously ignorant to the democratic process are expected to come out and vote in what clearly is a historic election.

We, members of the digital technology and media industry, have used the long tail idea gladly and often, at least since Chris Anderson’s highly recognized Wired magazine article about “the few that dominate”.

We have since flocked to the long tail concept to describe how the aggregate number of individuals previously ignored by commercial systems can populate and popularize anything from micro blogs to amateur-produced snack-size videos, or en-gross selling of long forgotten books on amazon.com.

The same “saftey in numbers” phenomenon may now be just what it took to change the direction of an entire country.

While the latter remains a promise until proven, no matter who you vote for tomorrow morning, the former is happening as we speak.

Already a record number of those previously discouraged or put off by politics have returned from their voting duties; young, first-time voters, african-americans, hispanics, immigrants, all joined by millions of others in a common believe that its worth standing in line for hours on end, convinced that the time and cause is right.

Of course our industry’s arsenal of lingo would be incomplete if we couldn’t add to the long tail moniker all sorts of related terms.

Think discovery, collaboration, and sharing. Add hyper-targeting and monetization to understand how much the past 21 months of presidential campaigning have benefited from their first dabble with Web 2.0.

Not to mention the unprecedented number of supporting broadband connections that helped to fuel the national debate.

Still, it is not entirely clear whether any side has gained on the other in its particular ability to leverage the long-tail power of the Internet.

It just might simply be a zero-sum game.

But hey. Who’s counting?

For now, let’s go and vote!

PS: For those of you eager to combine your long tail capabilities until the very last second of the democratic process, go to Current TV and fire up your Twitter and your Digg account.

PS II: To be sure, while both campaigns leveraged the long tail power of the Internet, they also knew that a linear TV feed was still a medium key enough to agree to last minute Saturday Night Live appearances or to buy millions of dollars worth of traditional broadcasting airtime to get the message out. Shelly Palmer’s recent post makes several salient points on the deliberate old-school-ness of those decisions. Be sure to check it out.