BBC TV goes mobile

The BBC has announced a trial of mobile television services on the Orange, Vodafone and 3 networks in the UK. It's terrific they are exploring new areas but this is hardly something a public service broadcaster should be doing in today's media climate.

The 3G viewing experience in the UK is still poor and little used by the general public, and until broadband is readily available on phones and prices for mobile internet access come down (or mobile operators decide to stop confusing consumers), it will remain so. So why a public service broadcaster should foray into this area is beyond me. For my mind, they are a commercial hypocrite, this is the act of a company with public service pretensions, and example of how grossly over-funded they are.

Blog Goggles

Intrinsically different to the other type of goggles i often wear on a bender night out, Blog Goggles is a new directory of blogging professionals, categorized and rated by their peers. It seems like a great service in theory, but i was a little dismayed to find they didnt have a category for internet television or online video, which is generally what i waffle on about here, so i have placed myself under the 'social marketing' category.

Anyway, you can rate my blog by clicking on the new icon at the top right of the page, or here it is below. Sounds like a good little service i would recommend to all fellow bloggers.

Great video, now embedded

Where every hour is amateur hour

Now here is a site that will get no short amount of infamy. Justin.tv has just gone six days old and features a young entrepreneur, Justin Kan, streaming video of his life, live on the internet. The twist, in comparison to previous 'watch my life' web cam efforts is Justin has a camera mounted to his head, and you can watch him 24-7 no matter where he goes.

Not kidding.

Its a fantastic concept, and i will be amazed to see where this goes. He's already gotten himself a front page on Digg which must have put his viewing figures through the roof. It surely won't be long til Letterman comes calling and then i wonder what will happen? Will people want to watch the interview on television or over the internet via Justin.tv? That will be quite a showdown between the old big daddy medium and the new unruly one.

Either way, i think its hilarious. The servers will surely crash at some stage if it really starts to take off. But, if for nothing else, its an amazing, crazy, internet 5.0 idea.

BTW, my subject heading is a great quote taken from the site itself.

The Tipping Point

The NBC/News Corp announcement is nothing short of THE tipping point in the online video marketspace. Internet television has just gone mainstream. Yes, we've all been watching Youtube for a while now, and short from video from whatever other video sites might have briefly taken our fancy. But this announcement is about long form, advertiser funded, online video content, for which very few media companies have any sort of strategy or solution in place. Expect a rash of activity over the coming months as they fall over themselves to find one.

Content companies, start your engines, you might want to go to market with haste - the great land grab for internet video eyeballs has just begun.

Making Retail Relevant

Traditional and specialist retailers are in a bad way at the moment. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

On the one side, they have the giant supermarket chains squeezing them on prices by ever expanding their product lines to things such as DVD players and consumer items. The other side, they have internet retailers offering greater convenience and lower prices.

This type of position prompted one analyst to describe UK music retailer HMV's position as being one of 'terminal decline'.

But is retail dead yet? Well, the answer is no and it never will be. But they will have to innovate and innovate fast or it will be time to go to that great check-out in the sky.

The latest buzz strategy for retail is for them to entertain as well as sell products. That will work! Just chuck in a few pinball machines next to those racks of CDs and that will bring them in droves. I think a better strategy would be discovery.

Retailers: look to the internet, and look to consumers, and ye shall find inspiration...

Excellent video

Here is a great video about web 2.0. Its old as hell, but if you haven't seen it already, and you're involved in the online industry, you need to.

The embed link on its youtube page doesnt seem to be working so you'll just have to settle for a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

Disruptive Technologies: Who's next? (part 1)

Great technologies cause disruption in industries. It is evident in every aspect of our everyday lives. Steam engines and Internal combustion engines did it to horses and humans (for powering machines). Automobiles displaced horses for transport. Desktop publishing displaced traditional publishing. The CD to the cassette tape. MP3 to the CD. Crunchy Nut cereal to regular cornflakes.

I could go on, but i would be simply copying the entry on disruptive technology in Wikipedia, which of course, has an extremely thorough entry on disruptive technology. Of course, i should add one last example though, wikis displacing encyclopedias.

In recent times, the industries that have been hardest hit (i should say the biggest or most well known industries, as lots of small ones have been hit also but would not be as well publicised) by disruptive technologies or innovations are:

Music
Telecommunications
Television

Music is the best known case, and Napster was its name. Traditional music retailers who haven't packed it in already, such as HMV, are in a dog of a position. They need to innovate now or face oblivion. Telecommunications companies are feeling the effect of Skype, and mobile operators will feel it the most when broadband arrives on mobile phones. Television audiences continue to fragment and companies such as Youtube, Narrowstep and Brightcove will further make the internet the prime place to watch video.

So who is next?

Here is my list:

Advertising
Video Production
Website Design
Fashion

The first two are pretty easy to identify, but the second two may be a bit ahead of the curve. Rest assured these sitting ducks will feel the effects soon. More in my next post why!

The Cardinal Blogging Sin

Blogs are a hungry beast. They require daily attention if you want them to grow in the way they should, much like a bonzai plant. But i, much like Mr Miyagi have alot of other things going on, and whilst i am not currently training a young Italian-American kid in the ways of Karate, i did recently go on a snowboarding trip and forgot all about the erstwhile world for a moment.

So now, i am back, and promise to blog more often. Check out my next post, i will write it right now (i promise!), about disruptive technologies, the industries that have fallen before it, and the industries to come...

What Google is really doing with all that 'dark fibre'

You've probably read that Google is buying up dark fibre in articles such as here, here and a good one here. So what are Google up to?

Theories abound from Artificial Intelligence to the popular theory of the moment, as a defence against net neutrality, should it no longer become a benefit we all enjoy. This theory works great for them because it makes us all think they just want to give the world access to information, like they said when they IPOed.

Do you really think Google would spend a whole whack of money just incase some network owners make a few bits of data move around a bit slower? Well yes, they do have just a few spare dollars at the moment, and that is trivialising the issue somewhat, but i have a different theory.

Video advertising online will be the next big, big thing. The only reason its not the biggest thing right now, is because advertising agencies are very slow adopters, and fantastically efficient road blocks to big brand marketing budgets. Google, of course, know a thing or two about internet advertising, and have certain rights to a very small amount of content. So with all that dark fibre, they can move video content very cheaply around the internet, thus giving them a cutting edge reason for content owners to host their video content with Google. Of course, only if you allow Google to sell the advertising around it.

So of course, Google's buying of dark fibre is for Google to control video advertising on the internet. And frankly, i think this is only a matter of time. They've already got all the worlds content (youtube), and they have the network resources to host and stream it. Mark my words, it wont be too long before Google announce an app for creating video ads which will be inserted amongst your uploaded content ...