U.S. Households Will Spend 17% Less on Electronics than in 2009

U.S. households will spend 17 percent less on consumer electronics devices in 2010 than they did in 2009. That rate of decline is the largest drop among the 20 countries surveyed by the International Data Corporation.

The emerging BRIC markets (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are expected to lead the recovery with household consumer elecronics spending gains of more than 20 percent year over year.

U.S. consumers still own more devices (an average of 15.4 major devices per household) than in other geographies. Moreover, U.S. consumers still tend to buy higher-end devices with more features and functions than consumers in other markets.

As U.S. households shift toward notebooks, PCs will increasingly be viewed as personal devices, fueling long-term growth in notebook PCs as well as PC peripherals, IDC predicts.

With only 28 percent of U.S. households owning a smartphone, growth in this category is a sure thing, IDC says.

Although HDTV ownership has already crossed the 50 percent mark among U.S. households, the market is expected to grow, as well.

Each of those trends should be favorable for providers of mobile and fixed communication services.

IDC

Apple iPad to offer newspaper subscriptions?

Apple may soon introduce the ability for app makers to charge on a subscription basis, which would make devices like the Apple iPad an ideal device for newspapers and magazines.

That should set up an interesting test of demand. Will non-users decide they want to become subscribers of newspaper or magazine products? Or will iPad content subscribers be existing subscribers who simply want the convenience of online access?

Sources say that Apple will share the demographic data with the publishers and this is critical because that’s what a newspaper or magazine needs to effectively court advertisers.

Apple iPad getting newspaper subscriptions soon

FTTH Penetration Grows, But Relatively Slowly

The number of U.S. locations with a fiber-to-the-home connection available continues to grow. The number of customers who decide to buy services from those FTTH passings is growing much more slowly.

In part that is because there is a gap between facilities being made available and services being marketed.

But even when it is marketed, some of us would say the take rate is lower than we would have anticipated.

At the moment, about 36 percent of homes able to buy FTTH services actually do so. You can attribute much of the resistance to consumer willingness to stick with cable operator access services and the comparable value of cable triple play services, compared to telco alternatives.

New HTC Sense Brings the Phone to the Living Room

HTC has unveiled two new phones and the next generation of the Sense interface, aiming to bring the phone to the living room with DLNA support.

The Desire HD and Desire Z (otherwise known as the G2) both run the new Sense software that implements DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) standards for streaming video to televisions, wirelessly.

The new phones offer 720p HD video recording and editing, so adding wireless streaming to the big screen fits into HTC’s aim to turn its phones into lifestyle devices.

DLNA support is not just restricted to video streaming, as the HTC implementation will allow exchanging any content among phones and computers that are DLNA-ready. This opens up the ability to share media content with any capable device in the home.

The new features start to blur the distinction between "home networking," Apple TV, Tivo and Netflix functions and capabilities.

New HTC Sense

Acer Launching Android 3.0 Tablets in 5, 7, and 10-inch Form Factors

Acer appears to readying Android-powered tablets in 5-inch, 7-inch, and 10-inch screen sizes. The 5-inch version is aimed at the same niche area as the Dell Streak. The largest version obviously will compete with the iPad.

The interesting developments to watch are how popular each of the form factors turns out to be. To the extent that a tablet is primarily a content consumption device, the issue then becomes which form factor is deemed most useful.

Personally, I find the 10-inch form factor unwieldy, for that purpose. On the other hand, a 4.5-inch screen often strikes me as a bit too small, though that isn't the only consideration.

Overall size, weight and battery life are important considerations as well. At the moment, I'd say the big issues are battery life and size. About seven inches seems to me the best compromise between extended battery life and screen size. Any bigger and I don't want to carry it routinely. Any smaller and I'll just use my Evo.

Acer Launching Android 3.0 Tablets in 5, 7, and 10-inch Form Factors

Creating a "Cable TV" Style Bundle for Print

The Content Project, slate to launch in the first quarter of 2011, is going to try and create a "pay once, get multiple sources" approach to print content bundles.

Developed by WPP, the world’s largest advertising firm, TCP hopes to create a sort of cable TV style bundle of content that a user pays for on a recurring basis, as a subscription, just like they pay for a cable bundle, and watch what they want.

Rather than doling out $10 a month to the Wall Street Journal, as an example, users will be able to pay a single fee to TCP to gain access to a network of sites. Revenue will be shared among this network depending on usage.

“Our ambition is to create a network whereby we have a number of publishers agreeing to a common platform, so we could roll this out on a broader scale,” says general manager David Restrepo. “From a consumer perspective, you won’t need dozens of accounts at different places.

In principle, it has a chance of working. In its early days, cable TV service was a true "access" service, allowing people to watch TV who otherwise would not have been able to view it. But most of cable TV's success came when it became an "add choice" value proposition, bringing consumers channels and programming they could not see on the broadcast channels.

That same model should make sense in the online print content space as well, to the extent it succeeds in presenting a "more choice" value proposition.

The analogy in the music business is the trend to buy songs rather than collections of songs known as CDs or albums. The TCP model implies that many users want to read "stories," not magazines or newspapers.

the Content Project

Sprint Embraces Femtocells

Sprint Nextel Corp. plans to give some of its mobile customers femtocells, reportedly at no cost, as a retention device in areas where Sprint signal strength is weak.

“In certain situations, where you have really bad coverage in your home, we will give it to you as a retention tool,” Paget Alves, Sprint business markets group president, said.

Up to this point many mobile operators have been hesitant to embrace femtocell technology too broadly, as that would imply their macrocell networks are, by definition, inadequate.

But there are many circumstances under which the cost of upgrading the macrocellular network does not make economic sense, and that is where femtocells could be very helpful.

The other angle is that Sprint's plan explicitly acknowledges that it is using femtocells as a part of its infrastructure, and not a "subscriber amenity."

Sprint Cell-Tower Giveaway May Put Pressure on AT&T, Verizon

Sprint, Grid Net Deal Aims at Meter Market

Sprint and Grid Net are collaborating to allow wireless smart meters and smart grid routers to connect using the Clearwire 4G network.

Grid Net currently has customers using WiMax in the Australian market.

Sprint Inks Grid Net Deal -- Seeking Alpha:

Google Has No Interest in Creating a Facebook Competitor

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says Google will add social networking features to its existing sites, rather than create a new application positioned more directly against Facebook.

"We're trying to take Google's core products and add a social component," Schmidt said.

Google sites to add social networking in layers

Twitter Redesign is Designed to Boost Consumption

As the Apple iPad is designed for content consumption rather than creation, so Twitter's redesign of its homepage is designed to make it easier for mainstream people to consume content on Twitter.

"You don't have to tweet" to take advantage of Twitter, said Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. As other sites have found, most users consume, but do not create content, and adding content richness creates more incentive for non-creators to use the sites.

Twitter Aims to Duplicate YouTube's Success

Mobile Securities Trading in India

The Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has approved trading of securities using mobile phones.

The facility will enable any registered broker or a client to trade, place orders and view positions from anywhere in the country through their mobile phones. All trading facilities accessible in Internet trading will be available in mobile trading and Investors will be able to see real time changes in share prices and market data of multiple companies on their mobile screen.

Mobile Trading: The Upside for Telecoms and the Indian Market

13% of Multichannel Video Subs Might Cancel in Next 12 Months, Survey Finds

Some 13 percent of current multichannel video subscribers in the United States say they are "somewhat" or "very" likely to cancel their current subscription in the next twelve months, and not sign up with a competing provider, according to a survey of 2,000 US households recently conducted by Strategy Analytics.

“While it may represent only a relatively small percentage today, we anticipate the number of cord cutters to increase going forward,” says Ben Piper, Strategy Analytics director.

Younger Americans consume and value content in a way far different from their parents’ generation, and have little regard for how content is delivered, says Piper. That is undoubtedly true. What still remains unknown is the degree to which consumers will do what they say they will (often they do not).

The other unknown is the extent to which service providers will adapt by offering on-demand access to desired content, shoring up demand for the traditional product by requiring a traditional subscription in order to access the on-demand content.

The other angle is the extent to which younger users, who have grown up in households where somebody else pays the bill, and who initially do not subscribe (to save money) when founding their own households, might change their views as they progress in their careers and find "saving money" by not subscribing is not the big consideration it once was.

So far, online and mobile video seems to be supplemental, not a replacement for multichannel video services, for nearly everyone. The verifiable percentage of users who have had service and stopped using it seems to be somewhere less than three percent of households.

The percentage of all households that buy broadband access but not video service is in the three percent range or so, Nielsen says, for example. The issue there is that not every household that doesn't buy video service is a "cord cutter." Some newly-formed or temporary households do not buy video entertainment services, but are not, strictly speaking, "cord cutters."

They might never have bought multichannel video service before, but that is not always an indication they do not want the product, or will not buy it in the future. Also, there have always been some households that do not buy such services because they do not see the value, and three percent of households would not be at all unusual on that score.

The point is that actual levels of "video cord cutting" are rather insignificant at the moment, and barely different from "non-subscribing" video households overall.

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YouTube Tests Sreaming Service Live

YouTube is testing its streaming service live on Sept. On Sept. 12 and 13, 2010, YouTube is running a live test of its live streaming service. Howcast, Next New Networks, Rocketboom and Young Hollywood are providing content for the test.

The new platform integrates live streaming directly into YouTube channels. All broadcasters need is a webcam or external USB or FireWire camera.

Included in the test is a “Live Comments” module which lets you engage with the broadcaster and the broader YouTube community.

Based on the results of this initial test, YouTube will evaluate rolling out the platform more broadly to its partners worldwide.

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New Twitter Design and Features Launched

Twitter has crafted a new design featuring scrolling Tweets (no need to click "more"), ability to embed photos and videos, a details pane that shows "additional details."

"Mini profiles" allow users to click a username to see a mini profile without navigating from the page, which provides quick access to account information, including bio and recent Tweets.

Verizon Introduces "Computing as Service" for Smaller Businesses

Boosting bandwidth, adding more servers and turning up additional storage capacity to meet changing business needs quickly are among the many things small and medium-sized businesses now can do affordably with Verizon's new cloud computing offering, "Computing as a Service, SMB," that can be billed on a credit card.

Verizon's new offering is tailored to companies that have limited IT resources and do not want to own or manage their IT infrastructure. "CaaS SMB" is suited to smaller businesses such as retailers, manufacturers and professional services firms as well as independent departments within larger organizations, Verizon says. It also appeals to online businesses and application developers who want to code, test and stage in a reliable and scalable cloud environment.  All that's needed to get started is a credit card.

With Verizon CaaS SMB, customers can customize the server, storage and network resources required to manage a Web presence or enable company applications.  Unlike many other available cloud offerings, Verizon CaaS SMB offers built-in security including virtual private networks while allowing companies to add more security features.  CaaS SMB also lets companies retain previous computing configurations of their data and servers so data can be easily accessed in the future.