Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Hulu Serves Up Most Video Ads

Hulu is where the most video ads are viewed, according to comScore. In fact, all of the top-10 sites where the most video ads are delivered feature professionally-produced content.

Dedicated Mobile TV Networks Losing to Web Delivery?

Disappointing adoption levels of existing mobile TV services, in large part because of competition from streamed mobile services, might indicate that special-purpose mobile TV networks do not have the appeal mobile Internet services and applications do, say researchers at Juniper Research.

The Juniper Research report found that the number of paying subscribers to networks based on standards such as DVB-H, DMB, CMMB and MediaFLO were not expected to exceed 10 million globally until 2013 at the earliest, by which time more than 180 million mobile customers will be subscribing to 3G/4G/WiFi enabled mobile TV services.

Kickstand for Smartphones

No kickstand on the back of your smartphone? Use a pair of glasses. It works if you are near-sighted. It probably won't work for the far-sighted unless the kickstand uses a separate pair.

New technology and applications require new physical capabilities. This helps when watching video. Or you could buy an HTC with a kickstand. A bit more elegant, but this is a great impromptu "retrofit."

How Many Screens Now are Relevant?

Not so long ago, "three screens" were the foundation of consumer multichannel video strategy, those screens being the TV, the PC and the mobile device. With the advent of the e-book reader, perhaps one can add a fourth screen. One can argue that the tablet PC now becomes a viable fifth screen.

There are probably other ways to conceive of "screens," some based on behavioral metrics or applications, rather than devices. Right now, though, it is virtually every other screen than the TV that is getting most of the attention, and rightly so.

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Virgin Mobile USA Aims Prepaid Mobile Broadband at Self Employed Workers

Virgin Mobile USA is aiming its new nationwide prepaid service at self-employed and independent workers.

The Broadband2Go family of mobile broadband products now includes a new $40 unlimited mobile broadband plan. The new offer replaces the previous $20, $40 and $60 plans, allowing consumers to access unlimited internet use at home or on-the-go for $40 per month. The $10 option for 100 MB, good for 10 days from purchase, remains for less frequent internet users.

A recent study from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that the self-employed and independent workers represent approximately 30 percent of the nation’s workforce, Virgin Mobile USA notes. The study determined that this segment of the self-employed population, consisting mainly of small business owners and freelancers, represents a large market of consumers who need to stay connected, mainly with email and internet browsing, without the constraints of a contract.

That's one way to segment a market.

Multichannel Video Entertainment Business Loses Subscribers

Is it time to start talking about "plain old television" service, as we talk about "plain old telephone service"?

It might be just a bit early to say. We will need several more quarters of reports until we can say for sure.

But is seems likely something has changed. Multichannel video has been a legacy service for some time, as has POTS, but video has continued to grow subscriber counts, while landline voice lines have been contracting since about 2000 or 2001.

DirecTV to Stream NFL Sunday Ticket

In the emerging online video entertainment business, content rights remain a key stumbling block. Lots of people might like to buy their professional video on a more customized basis. Lots of people might prefer to buy programming they want on a more a la carte basis, rather than paying for traditional multichannel video service.

Now DirecTV says its exclusive "NFL Sunday Ticket" service will be sold as a streaming service, costing $350, without the need to buy the regular DirecTV service as well. When DirecTV subscribers buy NFL Sunday Ticket, they pay $300 on top of a DirecTV subscription.

The still-unnamed service will mean fans can get a full slate of games without switching their current cable, telco or satellite providers. The service will not offer the full resolution of the DirecTV-delivered service.

"We will make a full 720p HD resolution stream available online, but most viewers won't be able to experience the service at that resolution," says  Jon Gieselman, DirecTV spokesman. The picture quality will depend on a user's Internet connection.

For broadband Internet access providers, the implication is that chance to upsell connections featuring higher speeds that will increase the odds that the full 720p picture can be viewed properly. Latency and congestion issues can still pop up, and users might have to work harder at creating a setup able to send the streamed pictures to a TV set for viewing. For some, it will be worth it.

The larger point is that latent demand for viewing alternatives will not develop robustly until rights issues are settled and the whole process becomes nearly as easy as watching plain old TV.

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Costs of Creating Machine Learning Models is Up Sharply

With the caveat that we must be careful about making linear extrapolations into the future, training costs of state-of-the-art AI models hav...