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Current | Archives
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Sunday, June 07, 2009
Pay for Hulu
Last week there was a lot of talk of Hulu becoming a subscription service. The reaction to this has been all over the map. Everything from it is a great idea to everyone will go back to being a pirate. Of course no one know anything until the details come out. If you look at Hulu now, you will see that most of the A-level content only goes back a few episodes. You cannot catch up for a whole season on Hulu. It is there if you missed an episode or if you want to watch episodes on the internet around when they air on TV. The premium content, like the Showtime Show Weeds, you only get clips. In the best of all worlds the current free content stays free. Subscription content is only for things you would otherwise have to buy the DVD to get or full episodes of premium content. If that was the subscription service Hulu offered, it might be successful. The problem with this model is clear. A successful pay wall will cause more programs to go behind that pay wall. In part because networks control the shows, there are still lots of hands in those pockets. If someone sees a new revenue stream, everyone will want to swim in it. This year people have been talking a lot about cutting the cord of cable TV. This works, as long as not many people do it. TV networks and producers count on the revenue from cable subscriptions to make their business work. If enough people stop paying cable bills the whole business model will stop working. Right now cutting the cord works, if you want less content to watch. Yeah, I cannot watch all the networks that get with my cable, but I sure watch a lot of them. I think that people who are looking at Hulu as source of free TV will be upset in a while. If everyone wants TV for free we will be stuck like crap like I'm a Celebrity get me Out of Here and The Hills as the only new content to watch. That is not really the world I am looking forward to. Labels: content, Hulu, video, web video
- Rich,
11:50 AM
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
iPhone Apps and Content
 There is a post on Gizmodo about how they are starting to see single band apps pop up on the iPhone store. The person who wrote the article thought this is lame. It is easy to see how this could end up in 100s of apps being on the store and an average fan buying dozens of these apps. I am not surprised this is happening. It is a result of the business rules of the app store and of the apps. A customer can only be charged once per app. That means that there is no other way for the record labels to charge you every time the content is updated. There is no way to charge people through a single app. The content provider is forced to send the customer back to the app store and buy a new app. I am not against the record company charging me for new content when it comes out, I just don't like the idea of needing 40 apps to listen to the bands I like. I already blogged about how apps have short life spans. So putting out new apps sounds like a good thing. This is new and it seems like there is a lot to be worked out in this business model. As a customer, if there are songs I can get on the app, I want them in my iTunes collection also. I would want to be able to listen to them in other context also. Not just in that app alone. Labels: apps, business, content, Gizmodo, iphone
- Rich,
11:07 PM
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Watching the wrong thing.
This is my open letter to David Wilkerson after reading his article about Netflix streaming service. Dear David, I am amazed that you can write the article above without mention at all about the content providers. The deals the content providers sign with the content delivers will have a lot to do with who is successful in this space. It has often be said that content is king. One of the big differences between Netflix streaming service and Apple or Amazon is that Netflix has much older movies. Recent, big studio, DVD releases are no where to be found. Right now Netflix customers need to get the DVD to get these titles. I do not see this changing any time soon. Ask some studio heads what they think of Netflix. See what they say about their new releases coming to a Netflix unlimited streaming service. I do not think they will want to give up their current VOD or DVD business model. They will use their copyrights to keep this from happening as long as they can. Any analysis who does not ask questions about this problem also do not know what business they are covering. Thanks Rich Thomas Labels: content, digital content, DVD, movie, Netflix, openletter, Wall Street Journal
- Rich,
1:42 PM
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Can you make an omelet out of it?
I was talking to Jimmy Gownley at comic con. He is the creator, artist, and writer of Amelia Rules. We were talking about people making movies out of comic books. Hollywood has been coming to Comic Con for years looking to license properties. This year everyone was talking about how big Iron Man and The Dark Knight was. During the conversation Jimmy used his best Hollywood producer's voice and said, "This is a great comic book, Can we make and omelet out of it?" he went on to say only in America do we insist to make a movie or TV show out of very other created work we can find. If it is a great comic let it be a great comic and make a movie out of something else. I can see his point. Hollywood is not always good at being creative. It is often easier to cash in by leveraging someone else's work. What is even worse is that often Hollywood buys a story and totally ruins it trying to move it from one media to another. Jimmy is very invested in Amelia Rules and it would be hard for him to see someone else control it. I heard Christopher Dickey on NPR's Talk of the Nation talking about the south and the upcoming election. During the show Christopher Dickey told one of the callers he knows the south well, his father wrote the novel Deliverance. This statement made me think about the quote "Can you make an omelet out of it?" Even if people know this novel, much more people know this work because of the movie. I have never read Deliverance, but I would think about reading it now because I want to see how it relates to the movie. In the end I think that moving a book or comic book to a movie is good the great deal of the time. Fans, film makers, and writers have to realize that the mediums are different from one another. You cannot expect to have the same experence with each. I still think it is worth moving art from one medium to another. The next time I see Jimmy I will give him my idea for the Mary Violet Omelet. Labels: comic book, content, hollywood, Jimmy Gownley
- Rich,
12:29 PM
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Customers Not Buying Bluray players
Bluray might have won the format war, but it looks like customers are not buying bluray players. This is not really that surprising to me. People are still not sold on Bluray Players. I think people are not sold that they need that level of HD content. The picture might be better than Cable HD or VUDU HD, but most people cannot tell the difference. I think that Blurays will need to come down to about $200 a box and $25 a disk before they take off. Right now most people are still good with their old DVDs. It will take a while to change that. Labels: Blu-Ray, content, DVD, format, HDTV
- Rich,
8:42 PM
Friday, May 11, 2007
Content Provider New Speak
I hate when people try to change language to fit there needs. Oh, consumers think that DRM is a bad thing, we need to start calling it something else. If we do that people might not realize that we are still controlling the rights of the content. "I don't want to use the term DRM any longer," said Zitter, who added that content-protection technology could enable various new applications for cable operators. One example could be "burn-to-own DVDs," where a consumer would use a set-top box with a built-in DVD burner to record a movie onto an optical disc, thus eliminating the costly current process of pressing DVDs and distributing them physically at retail. Another possibility, says Zitter, is "early window exhibition," either in the form of making a movie available through video-on-demand (VOD) the same day as the home video release or allowing home theater users to pay extra to see a high-definition version of a theatrical release in the comfort of their home. I really do not mind HBO not offering HD content On Demand. This is a market choice they are making. Other companies can provide HD content and HBO can miss out. They have to be able to measure how many subscribers are not signing up for HBO because of this. What I don't like is the idea that they want cable providers and hardware companies to limit the use of their hardware because HBO is afraid of what people might do with their content. I do not want my hardware limited. I think this is where DRM gets the bad name you are trying to avoid. Reading the comment above has a funny comment about "burn-to-own DVDs." People already think they have this right. They do not think that they would have to pay HBO extra money for home recording. Since they could do it with VHS and DVD, they are not expecting not to be able to do it with HD-DVD. I wonder what consumers will do when they find out. I would really like this to come down to business choices. A movie studio would never refuse to screen a movie because there is a chance it might get bootlegged. Getting bootlegged is a cost of doing business. In the end, what HBO does not want is for the market to set the value of their product. They want to find barriers to keep the value of their content high. I think this is a mistake. Labels: content, DRM, hbo, HD DVD, On Demand
- Rich,
4:12 PM
Monday, April 23, 2007
Recovering Satellites
I have been thinking about the XM-Sirius Merger. I think it is sad that XM and Sirius got to the point where they feel that they have to merge. I think this is because of how they built their business. I think the problem they made was to sign too much exclusive content. They think the exclusive content is going to drive subscribers. The problem with exclusive content is that XM or Sirius has to pay the whole cost for that content. The two sat TV providers have a majority of channels that a customer can also get from cable. There are lots of TV channels that would not be able to survive if they had to get all of their views from satellite TV. There is a lot of radio content out there. I would pay money to get programming from other cities. If I could get the best radio channels from Philadelphia, Portland, Washington DC, that would be interesting. How many people who grew up in Philadelphia would like to tune into WIP or WMMR. I know that I would. I think you could sign these kinds of content deals for a lot less money. On top of that you could also have commercial free content. I hope that the FCC does not allow this merger to go through. I think it would mean the death of satellite radio. I do not see anything interesting coming out of either of these companies if they do not need to compete. Labels: business, content, satellite radio, Sirius, XM
- Rich,
6:59 PM
Friday, October 13, 2006
Thinking like a copyright holder
It should not suprise you that YouTube/Google and Copyright holders have diffenet views on the Value of content. People might wonder why a company would walk away from something like YouTube. A fraction of a cent per stream is a lot more than nothing, but you need to think like a copyright holder. Principles matter - Copyright holders don't engage in logical debates about the 'value' of their content. They own it and they establish the value. They have the law on their side and they want their money. It is the principle of getting paid for their work, for every use, that matters. Dick Parsons of Time Warner said "If you let one thing ignore your rights as an owner it makes it much more difficult to defend those rights when the next guy comes along." The question is can one or two fo the big eight break away and change the dynamic. I am not sure if that would change the world or not. I think of the reasons that YouTube has taken off so much is because the users have so much freedom. I am not sure what will happen to a site like this if the customers do not have that level of freedom. Labels: content, copyright, you tube
- Rich,
6:40 PM
Saturday, September 16, 2006
What is Web 2.0
I was at the SFlickr meetup and ... was asking people for a definition of Web 2.0. At first no one could define it. I said that web 2.0 is just tags. The were only one succinct answer, Web 2.0 web sites are focused around user contributed content. I was struck at how easy that answer was. If I think about the Web 2.0 sites that I use, they are about about user content. Look at YouTube, Yepp, del.icio.us, dodgeball, Upcoming.org, and Flickr. All of the interactions on these sites are about users sharing information. There is nothing to share information about if there is no content. I think something has changed in the way people have been using the internet over the last two years. About four years ago users started to take control again. Now websites are trying to fine way to give users control in ways that are useful. I think that is what Web 2.0 really is. Labels: content, Dodgeball, flickr, tags, upcoming.org, web, Web 2.0, yepp, you tube
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