Nokia N96: N95 in a New Shell?

This image, from Mobile-Review.com, strike some people as looking like an N81, but larger. To others it resembles an N95. No specs available yet, it seems.

Digital TV Transition: Not Y2K

In February 2009, all over-the-air analog TV broadcasting will be shut off. Some observers are concerned that consumers aren't acutely aware of the coming changes, resulting in massive disruption of the TV experience on the day of the analog broadcasting shut off.

Maybe not. The only potentially-affected customers are those who rely solely on over-the-air signal reception. Customers of cable, satellite or telco TV services won't have to do anything. To be sure, cable, satellite or telco TV providers will have to supply a new digital decoder if one is not already in place. But the point is that the providers will take care of their own customers, and that's 85 percent to 90 percent of all TV viewers.

Of those customers who have over-the-air connections, those who have bought TVs with digital tuners will not notice anything other than universally-better pictures. So the real issue lies with a single-digits number of viewers who have analog-only tuners.

By the time the transition nears, every mass market electronics retailer will have taken steps to push the sale of digital decoders. So this will not be anything like a feared "Y2K" event.

Low Awareness of Google Apps?

In a recent survey, NPD asked PC users whether they had heard about online, browser-based office productivity applications like Google Docs & Spreadsheets or other similar Web-based apps.

About 94 percent say they never have heard of Web-based productivity suites. About half of one percent have substituted Web-based productivity suites for desktop software such as Microsoft Office.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets perhaps is the most visible of the Web-based suites. But apparently a long ways from being a mainstream application.

EComm: The Trillon Dollar Market

I usually don't "plug" conferences. But EComm, to be held in March, is an exception, in part because it is a "bottoms up" meeting being organized by people in the IP communications business, not by a well-established conference producing organization.

The other reason is that I am primarily a "content" person, most interested in the intellectual capital being created at such meetings, not the important but more pointedly commercial aspects of trade shows. I respect the folks over at STL (Telco 2.0) for this reason as well.

Lee Dryburgh, who is pulling this together, shares a perspective on what is happening in the trillion-dollar-annual-revenue telecom business. "The first wave of the democratization of communications was market liberalization," Dryburgh notes. "The second wave was VoIP."

"Yet VoIP as a standalone product is not viable long term (consumer attraction is drifting away from "standalone telephony") and VoIP is unlikely to ever be highly profitable," he insists. "In short, VoIP is something 90s which has had little consumer success since."

"The third chapter onwards is far more exciting and profitable," Dryburgh believes. "It is this chapter onwards that eComm seems to track, promote and highlight."

"The third chapter takes VoIP as one building block of many to be fused together into "application experiences"; largely social applications or business efficiency products (or both)."

I happen to agree with him, and lots of us do. You should really check this out:

http://www.ecommedia.com

(I apologize for this not being a hot link, but I have never been able to figure out how to do that, despite following the instructions. Just a dumb end user problem.)

Or click on the new "Related Article" field at the bottom of the post. I've had to play with the HTML, which, as a Mac person, I really hate. I need to enhance it a bit, but that might take me a year...really....

If the future of the global telecom industry is a concern you share, be there.

FTC Okays Google DoubleClick Buy

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission will not try to block Google's acquisition of online ad-serving vendor DoubleClick, the agency said Thursday.

The commission voted 4-1 to approve the deal after an eight-month investigation. "After carefully reviewing the evidence, we have concluded that Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick is unlikely to substantially lessen competition," the majority wrote in a statement.

The commission downplayed concerns brought by some privacy groups. Privacy concerns are "not unique to Google and DoubleClick," and "extend to the entire online advertising marketplace," commissioners wrote.

Melancholy End for Think Secret

Apple and Think Secret have settled their lawsuit, reaching an agreement that results in a "positive solution for both sides," though one might question the broader implications. Think Secret has in the past published rumors about upcoming new Apple products, and Apple is a notoriously secretive company in that regard. Apple has sued to force Think Secret to reveal its sources.

As part of the confidential settlement, Think Secret was not forced to reveal the sources of information it published. But part of the agreement also is that Think Secret no longer will be published.

The decision represents a "positive" outcome for Nick Ciarelli, Think Secret's publisher, only to the extent that the financial damage from losing such a lawsuit would have been catastrophic. "Positive" for Apple in that Apple reins in "leakers" and media outlets.

There's nothing wrong with Apple's obsession about secrecy. It's a time-tested and successful "buzz marketing" tactic, and Apple plies it better than any other company. But the "chilling" effect on media is palpable. That isn't to say there are not some circumstances where revealing a source is socially desirable. As a rule, though, lots of "news" that actually is socially desirable is the result of somebody "leaking" something.

It's good that Nick still has a life. It's good that no Apple "leakers" will be prosecuted or "persecuted." I still respect Apple. It's just too bad it had to come to this.

Video Will Not Follow Music Disruption Model

There’s a big difference between the music and the video businesses. Music executives unsuccessfully fought the advent of digital distribution. But media and entertainment industry executives overwhelmingly believe that online distribution of TV shows is an opportunity, not a threat.

Video content creators will embrace online distribution, rather than trying to "kill" or "cripple" it, as music executives did.

Of the 100 executives surveyed recently by Accenture, 70 percent agreed that online distribution of TV shows is more of an opportunity than a threat, given its ability to extend the reach of its programming to a much wider audience at a relatively low cost
compared to traditional broadcasting or physical distribution.

“Technology will continue to alter the distribution landscape, allowing people to access content on their own schedule, wherever they are, in all kinds of ways,” says Leslie Moonves, CBS CEO. “Companies that can combine world-class content with powerful national and local distribution will have the competitive advantage.”

If that is the case, broadband service providers will have some role to play. “We see a big transition moment in the industry,” says Accenture managing consultant consultant Diego Mora Ovideo. “Our telecom clients have many questions about the main battleground.”

“A big question mark is how to change the corporate DNA and business structure to really compete,” he says. In large part, that is because the ecosystem is changing.

“Value is shifting away from simple access,” says Mora Ovideo. And there’s a big shift in Europe that North American carriers will have to confront at some point. “To change their DNA, some are looking at “netco” and “servco” models.

You might call this structural separation or functional separation. Sometimes voluntarily, sometimes involuntarily, telcos are creating distinct organizations to handle retail sales and networks.

“Either there is a formal division into a network business unit and service business units, or sometimes separate organizations are created, without a formal separation of business units, Mora Ovideo says.

“It would be very difficult to think the current business model, skills and mindset will work in the new world,” he adds. Different backgrounds and skills and mindsets are required.

And such reorganizations are being conducted even though the amount of new revenue to be earned from new service offerings is necessarily all that large at the moment. “It isn’t about current volume, but building a position for the future,” he says.

“We must move fast enough o position and have a significant role”, is what service provider execs are saying, he notes. A few leaders like Apple, Nokia, News Corp. and Google are moving very fast, and our clients are moving slower, on purpose, to focus on fixed mobile convergence, substitution and other issues, he says. In the media space, service providers will build partnerships, Mora Ovideo says.

“There’s urgency to act fast,” he says, even though over the next two to three years access will remain the main revenue source.

Some incumbents also are moving to disrupt themselves, accelerating the change, in the voice area. As you would expect, the more aggressive moves often are made by smaller incumbents, who have more to gain from disruptive moves. ‘Absolutely, the weaker incumbents in a market are more likely to launch attacks,” he says.

“In any event, within four or five years, voice will not drive revenue,” he notes.

On the media and content front, 62 percent of executives look to “new platforms” as being the most important key to growth, while 31 percent say “new content” will drive growth, and seven percent say “geographic expansion” is the key growth lever.

Of these new platforms, online and mobile are seen as the key platforms, with a combined 43 percent of execs citing online as most important. Online portals were seen as key by 17 percent of respondents, while 13 percent think social networking sites will be important. About 13 percent think e-commerce sites will be key.

Mobile platforms were seen as key by 17 percent of respondents.

Most think (53 percent) of executives surveyed think “short form content” offers the
largest opportunity for “new content,” with “long form” or “full length” video content (greater than 60 minutes) garnering 11 percent of responses.

Video gaming” was viewed as a key growth area by 13 percent of executives. About 57 percent of respondents think “consumer-based competition” or “user-generated” content is the biggest threat to the media business, while 46 percent also are worried about “piracy or IP theft.”

Still, 68 percent of respondents believe that they will be able to harness user-generated content to create revenue within one to three years.

About 70 percent of respondents also think that social media is a natural evolution of today’s business but will be an evolutionary development. About a quarter of respondents think social media will be “revolutionary” in its impact.

More than 90 percent of the executives said that their companies would become
involved in social media over the next 12 months.