Wal-Mart Closes Video Download Service

Wal-Mart shuttered its video download service Dec. 21. Videos purchased and downloaded as part of the service still are playable, so long as the original PC the movies were downloaded to remains operational. Due to licensing restrictions, those videos cannot be copied or transfered to a different computer.

That's an obvious measure to protect copyrights, but points to one objection some users may have to buying downloads. Some of us go through a PC a year, so "buying" really means viewing until the hard drive or PC dies.

Having learned the hard way this will happen, some of us now store iTunes collections on external hard drives, so we can lose the CPUs without having to reload all the music again.

DVDs, Concerts, CDs: Attention Deficit

Alliance Bernstein Research reports that DVD sales were down 4.1 percent in December, year to date, and that the fourth quarter declined 2.1 percent, based on Nielsen VideoScan tabulations.

That makes 2007 the first negative sales growth year-over-year since DVDs came to market. Which drives one to speculate that multi-tasking and attention sharing now is beginning to show. There are other possible explanations, of course.

The high-definition format battle might be a factor. Consumers might be waiting until the dust settles before beginning a switch to HD format disks.

As retailers blame the weather for slower than anticipated sales, we might this year point to a tougher economic climate and consumer unwillingness or inability to spend on such things, as well.

The total North American concert industry also posted its slowest year since 2004. According to Pollstar, the top 20 tours generated $996 million, down 15.6 percent from 2006 totals.

Amazon to Sell Some Warner Music Without Encryption

Warner Music is making its entire back catalog, free of copying restrictions, available for purchase through the Amazon MP3 store. New releases won't be part of the deal.

Amazon therefore will be able to sell 2.9 million songs in encryption-free MP3 format. Music copyright holders obviously don't like the MP3 format. As a user, I wouldn't buy any music that isn't in MP3 format. Let them flail around some more. No MP3, no sale. That simple.

Many music industry executives probably still are kicking themselves for not "getting" digital distribution, then not "getting" iTunes.

Apple Fox Deal: Blockbuster and Netflix Impact

Apple has a deal with News Corp's Fox for a movie rental downloads. So far, the viddeo download business has been called a "hobby" by Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Disney has had its catalog available on iTunes to allow for purchases, and other studios have partial movie and partial video content catalogs already available. It isn't clear how much impact the new "rental" capability will have. Apple probably doesn't expect much revenue lift for the moment.

Blockbuster and Netflix, of course, will be watching closely, as both of those firms want to dominate the video download business.

If Apple succeeds, it will illustrate one interesting thing about "disruptive" innovation. Normally, one expects more innovation from smaller companies. But sometimes it takes a big, influential company to really shake things up.

Google and Apple are those sorts of companies.

at&t FTTH, FTTN Marketing Issues

Marketing operations, as much as anything else, will mean at&t customers who actually have fiber-to-the-home will get the same bandwidth and services as customers served by the U-Verse networks, which use very-high-speed Digital Subscriber Line as the drop wire. That means 6 Mbps data access and one high-definition TV stream at a time, even though FTTH networks are capable of more.

About a million at&t customers actually will have fiber drops by the end of 2008.

The marketing issue is analogous to what happens when a citywide broadband network has to be build and marketed. In the early stages, it isn't really possible to use mass media such as radio or television because the service provider simply generates lots of calls for service which it cannot meet. Early on, door hangers and direct mail work better.

To market U-Verse with scale economies, at&t wants to avoid confusing the market by touting offers that one out of 18 customers actually can get. So at&t has to "dumb down" the fiber access pipe. It makes total operational sense, even if some users who know the difference will be disappointed they can't take advantage of the optics.

Android Phones in February?

One would assume that Android phone developers will want to show prototypes of possible devices at the Mobile World Congress in February. This screen sort is supposed to be one of the concepts.

Keep in mind that this is supposed to be a functional prototype on which the developers and engineers can do their work, not a polished industrial design. That sort of thing almost has to be done before February, if Google is to gin up much buzz.

Google Patent Infringement: One Win and Overtime

The U.S. Court of Appealrs has ruled that Google’s AdSense program does not infringe on any Hyperphase Technologies patents related to contextual linking and presentation of information. Google won the initial decision, which was appealed. However the court overturned the part of the initial decision covering the AutoLink browsing tool, ruling that there may be infringement of two patents, and sent the case back for another look.

The AutoLink browser tool parses Web pages for fragments of text in certain formats, and then transforms them into links to relevant Web pages.

One senses that something is wrong with the patent system. Fostering innovation by protecting inventions is a good thing. But some patents seem so generic, covering entire processes, not simply the expression of a process, that the patents are overly broad, and seem examples of prior art.