A Look at Google TV

A look at Google TV. using the Logitech set-top.

Startups: When Desperation Leads to Success

Angel investor Mike Maples talks in this video about "pivots," those gut-wrenching, desperate changes in business model that entrepreneurs sometimes make when things really aren't going well. Sometimes a beloved idea has to be abandoned or modified in serious ways to get to a larger business.

Pivots are really hard and painful to do, without a doubt. They aren't planned, they weren't intended or foreseen. But sometimes it is the difference between huge success and middling along. Pivots also are risky. They are emotionally hard to do, since it often means abandoning a dream.

Mike Maples: “You Have to Be Willing to Throw it all away”

New Android "Gingerbread" Coming Relatively Soon?

The video apparently means a new version of Android is coming in perhaps several weeks.

How Big a Market for 3D TV?

There's always a chicken-and-egg problem when new video devices, supporting new video formats, are introduced.

Devices are useful when there is lots of content available, but lots of content isn't made available until there is a large installed base of terminals.

That isn't going to be any different with 3D television. DisplaySearch thinks those problems will be overcome over time, and they have been in the past for new content formats.

The firm forecasts that 3.2 million 3D TVs will be shipped in 2010, with growth to over 90 million in 2014. Based on this forecast, 3D will grow from two percent of all flat panel TVs shipped in 2010, to 41 percent in 2014.

Some of us wouldn't be surprised if those forecasts fell short, though. The 3D experience imposes new conditions on television viewing, which is among the easiest of all consumer content experiences. There is value, at least for some viewers. The issue is how much new value, compared to the higher cost.

If I had to guess, right now, I'd say the adoption forecast is too steep. 

3D TV Not Growing as Fast as TV Makers Expected in 2010, but Will Become Mainstream by 2014, with 90 Million Shipments - DisplaySearch

What is Hulu Worth?

Finding the right price for a monthly video service is tough because it depends on three things: 1) the range of content available, 2) the availability of substitutes for that content, and 3) how convenient the experience is.

Pricing Hulu at $10 assumes that the value of number one can overcome the issues raised by number two and three. Does it?

Among the Hulu Plus substitutes is Hulu itself, since most of the Hulu Plus content is available on Hulu itself for free.

The additional content a user can get from Hulu Plus arguably does not provide enough additional value, and the ads tend to degrade the "convenience."

Hulu's big draw remains its first-run TV shows. But $10 will buy an awful lot of Netflix movie content, sometime soon.

Why Slashing The Price of Hulu Plus Is The Right Thing To Do

Brand Management in the Social Era

Forrester Research believes that online experiences of the future will be "customized by the end user, aggregated at the point of us, relevant to the device and to the moment, and social as a rule."

All of that has implications for brands, not the least of which is that brands increasingly are experienced on a screen, ranging from smartphone to tablet to PC to TV.

Customized, aggregated, relevant and social also means it will be increasingly easy for the brand experience to include third-party information such as comparative prices, user reviews and other information that can reinforce or weaken a brand promise.

And that sort of thing is difficult to shape and control over the full range of social mechanisms that already exist, not to mention what will increasingly exist in the future. All of that is just a way of noting that brands genuinely have lost control of their brands.

It used to be that a firm could shape and control its end user and prospect touch points. These days, those touch points include comments shared by customers all over the Web. Brand management therefore has to actively include all the major ways people talk to each other on the Web.

That is every bit as hard as it sounds.

iPhone Passes Blackberry in Global Market Share

Apple has passed Research In Motion in global phone sales. During this year's third quarter, 15.4 million iPhones were shipped globally compared to only 12.4 million Blackberries, the researchers at Strategy Analytics says.

With the shipments, Apple grabbed a 15.4 percent share of the market during the period, while RIM finished well behind with a 12.3 percent share. Nokia still leads with 26.5 percent of the worldwide market.

A major factor contributing to RIM's slipping numbers is its 'limited presence in the high-growth touchscreen segment,' according to Strategy Analytics.

iPhone Passes Blackberry in Global Shipments - PCWorld