June 2011
7 posts
Cable worried about poverty, not Netflix - Yahoo!... →
Reality intersecting business.
Apple Steps Up in Lodsys Lawsuits, Files Motion to... →
Smart move by Apple - patent trolls threaten their entire ecosystem.
Apple Reverses Course On In-App Subscriptions →
A new morning brings new App Store Review Guidelines.
Tides aren’t this regular.
“If you want to make money at some point, remember this, because this is one of...”
– Hackers and Painters (via kevintwohy)
Smart words…
Short logic: Groupon IPO: Pass on this deal →
shortlogic:
Groupon has filed its S-1 and hopes to raise $750M in its initial public offering. Given they’re currently losing a staggering $117M per quarter, despite revenues of $644M, they’ll be burning through that cash almost as soon as it hits their account.
At the moment, it’s costing them $1.43 to…
Good analysis on the Groupon IPO.
Future of TV According to Netflix’s Reed Hastings... →
Good summary, but also worth noting was his interest in WiFi connected, app-aware TVs and how they would change what we currently understand as “networks.” Hastings was very bullish on the idea that individual shows could and would become apps and be directly available to consumers, a concept that we’ve been very interested in for a few years now.
May 2011
15 posts
Why it's harder to make money on Android than on... →
This is the big reason why we generally advise paid apps to just focus on iOS for the moment - Paid apps don’t make money on Android.
Film Makers Turn to iPad for Interactive... →
Now we’re talking.
“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I...”
– George Bernard Shaw (via azspot)
And thus the idea economy is born.
iOS Users Downloading 5 Million Games a Day,... →
Your Friday reading.
The Future of the Smartphone: Holograms & Folding... →
Smartphones are about to go through a massive change as we move past the concept of “cell phones” and into “portable information devices.” We’re slowly starting to drop the legacy aspects of old rotary phones in favor of prioritizing the more modern aspects of overall communication that mobile devices enable.
Steve Jobs: Get Rid of the Crappy Stuff - Carmine... →
Good advice overall.
2 tags
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on HBO, Cord-Cutting and... →
spytap:
Speaking of expired season, I’ve heard some networks talk about extending the life of shows they were going to cancel if you’re going to pay them to keep going. Does that make sense?
Yes. For example, “Friday Night Lights” wasn’t going to get continued two seasons ago on NBC, and DirecTV did a deal to extend that show. So we can see ourselves doing something like that–extending a...
Patent Troll Threatening iPhone Developers For... →
This comes very close to a “worst-case scenario” for app devs, and for Apple, who relies on their ability to sustain themselves. The iOS App Store was built on the work and efforts of thousands of small developers and cannot sustain itself solely on the larger players. Apple knows this, and I expect them to take some action once they’ve had the chance to take a legal look into...
The Math of Hit TV Shows - WSJ.com →
To a television network executive, the pitch sounds irresistible. “Dark but fantastical cop drama about a world in which characters inspired by Grimm’s Fairy Tales exist.”
This idea for a TV show has the ingredients the industry is seeking this year: a comfortable set-up (the cop show) with a slight twist (fairy tales). It beat out about 500 other pitches. Then it survived...
How Traditional Entertainment Can Use Social... →
NSA Gathers 4x the Amount of Info than the Library... →
“Instead of having to upload your thousands of MP3s, iTunes may be able to simply...”
– Without The Labels, Google’s Music Locker Service Will Look Like Apple’s Ugly Sibling. Again.
This is the difference between companies that build solutions or platforms and companies that build experiences. Google and Facebook and Amazon can’t figure out how to compete with Apple because they...
5 tags
More than $5 billion of venture capital investment... →
soupsoup:
In the three years that marked the height of the last boom, 1999 through 2001, the VC industry sank $96.4 billion into web start-ups, with more than 80 percent of that or nearly $78 billion in the United States alone, the Thomson Reuters data show. Of 10,755 VC deals over that run, 7,174 took place in the U.S. market.
Not so today. Of the more than $5 billion of VC money invested so...
Android May Be Winning OS Smartphone Market Share,... →
Unless you’re selling hardware, this is the important stat to keep in mind.
Twitter To Buy TweetDeck For $40 Million – $50... →
Smart move, given their current relationship with Uber.
April 2011
6 posts
Who Will Blink First? Obama Administration Battles... →
Really great Deadline article about the current and continuing spectrum fight between broadcasters and the US govt.
The secrets of YouTube success (freddiew.com) →
moth:
Popular YouTube filmmaker and effects whiz Freddie Wong nails it in this extended blog post. A must-read by a creator, for creators.
Tim’s right, this is absolutely a must-read for anyone considering a serious career in online content.
Art, Meet Touch: Photoshop Reveals New iPad Apps →
Today, Adobe revealed three new Photoshop Touch applications designed for the iPad: Adobe Color Lava, Adobe Eazel and Adobe Nav. The apps work with Adobe’s Photoshop CS5 desktop software, which will be updated to version 5.5 in order to support the new functionality. The update is due out in a matter of weeks.
What’s interesting about these applications - not Photoshop...
Apple iPad to dominate tablet market through 2015,... →
So what’re you doing to take advantage of that iPad you’ve come to love? How is your business evolving with mobile computing, tablets, and applications in mind?
Here's The Right Way For Developers To Think About... →
It would seem like common sense, but here’s a good article that lays out the right way to think about it (for now.)
March 2011
4 posts
Netflix To Enter Original Programming With Mega... →
kenyatta:
Video streaming juggernaut Netflix is becoming an original programming player. In what is probably the biggest gamble in its 14-year history, I hear Netflix has outbid several major cable networks, including HBO and AMC, for Media Rights Capital’s drama series House of Cards, executive produced and directed by David Fincher and exec produced by and starring Kevin Spacey.
Negotiations...
VW blends print and mobile advertising to... →
This is seriously cool. Worth checking out for sure.
Warner Bros And Facebook: What Their Experiment... →
This could shake things up a bit.
February 2011
6 posts
How the iPad Is Reshaping E-commerce - Advertising... →
In less than a year, the iPad has emerged as powerful platform for online retail — and the poster child for a new class of mobile commerce. Many retailers report that over 50% of their mobile traffic is now coming from the popular tablet device, according to Forrester, which coined a new name for the trend: t-commerce.
However, rather than creating new incremental sales, says Forrester,...
Warner Bros. Sells Movies as Apps, but Who’s... →
Warner Bros. announced Wednesday that it would begin offering individual app versions of some of its most popular movies for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. These versions, called “App Editions,” are available as free downloads and include bonus content and extra features, as well as the ability to buy the full-length film through in-app purchasing.
Now this is interesting. I’ve been...
Why HuffPo had to sell now →
AOL Buys Huffington Post: Arianna Cashes Out - The... →
Very interesting take on the AOL/HuffPo deal.
The primary reason for a company to be publicly traded—in the age of Sarbanes-Oxley, there are dozens of reasons against—is the currency it provides to go do grand things. In terms of corporate culture, AOL understands this concept better than any company in the world: in 2000, AOL used its inflated stock to swallow blue-chip Time Warner. For Time...
January 2011
13 posts
Hulu is now considering transforming itself into a... →
lisamct:
Hulu is now considering transforming itself into a “virtual cable operator” offering live linear channels and VOD content to paying subscribers, according to an in-depth piece in the WSJ that cuts to the heart of many issues TV networks, the owners of Hulu, are facing as they balance the desire to develop new digital business with the need to...
“Once, as we walked in Manhattan, he told me: “Imagine you’re in a game. Think...”
– If Your Life Were a Movie - NYTimes.com (via jaybushman)
“Some math: 200 million minutes a day / 60 minutes per hour * 365 days per year =...”
– I have found the cognitive surplus, and it hates pigs » Nieman Journalism Lab » Pushing to the Future of Journalism (via rafer)
“Disgusted that a video rental store raked him over the coals for returning a...”
– What Hollywood Execs Privately Say About Netflix - The Hollywood Reporter
Only Now Are We About To See The Real Battle... →
The thing about the “Android VS Apple” debate to keep in mind is that it’s essentially a game of “1 VS 100.” Yes two years from now, Android will have more marketshare - I don’t see an economic scenario where that’s not probable. But Android will do so with a scattered and fractured field where no single handset comes close to the sales of the iPhone. So...
“The modern economy runs primarily on information, and the Internet is by orders...”
– Predicting The Future Of The Internet Is Easy
“Predicting the future of the Internet is easy: anything it hasn’t yet dramatically transformed, it will. People, companies, investors and even countries can’t stop this transformation. The only choice you have is whether you join the side of...
Apple will remove home button on next iPad and... →
Steve Jobs may finally get his wish of an iPhone without buttons.
It’ll be interesting to see how they will handle the basic navigation and multitasking (I’m sure more than a few cues will be taken from their Magic Trackpad experiment.) Either way, this should signal a significant change for iOS 4.3.
“I don’t mean to come off as some starry eyed huckster but, from my vantage...”
– Bryce Roberts : Everything will be reinvented
(via msg)
Yes. Emphatically, yes.
(via mikehudack)
Ditto.
Mobile Broadband Users Hit 1 Billion in 2011 →
You wanna know the future of the internet? Here it is.
JWT: 100 Things to Watch in 2011 →
While a few of their “past things we got right” selections were as difficult as calling that tonight it’s gonna get dark, some of the 2011 predictions are safe, some are eye raising, and some are just wild. Definitely worth the look if you haven’t checked it out yet.