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See ya later, WinMo: Microsoft's mobile strategy needs a reboot

Publié: décembre 3, 2009, 10:57pm CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

There are lots of winners in the wireless wars. Microsoft, unfortunately, isn't one of them. Thirteen years after it first introduced Windows CE, its homegrown OS for small devices finds itself perilously close to oblivion. With market share for Windows Mobile OS in freefall, vendors fleeing and its mindshare in meltdown, now is as good a time as any for the company to dive into a full-on re-think of its mobile strategy.
Or an exit from the market until it can figure out what makes the most sense.
While it's unfortunate that the company that dominated the desktop for so long hasn't been able to repeat that success on shrunken-down devices, Microsoft's experience should serve as an example to the players now lining up for their shot of wireless glory.
What's in a name?
Microsoft's first mistake was branding. It never stuck with a name long enough for the public to know what it was buying. Or should buy.
What started life as Windows CE eventually became Pocket PC, and then Windows Mobile. With enough variations and flavors to confuse even the most ardent Microsoft fan (quick, what's the difference between Windows Mobile 2003 SE for Pocket PC Phone Edition and Windows Mobile 2003 SE for Smartphone?) it's no wonder that most consumers long ago dropped Microsoft's mobile products off of their radar. Even now, the company hasn't learned: Its current "Windows phone" branding makes a murky brand identity even murkier.
I admit to having owned two Microsoft-powered devices in my lifetime: a Windows CE 2.0-powered HP 360LX and, later, a Motorola Q smartphone that ran Windows Mobile 5.0. While the old clamshell-style HP was too big to shlep around in my pocket, the Q was lean enough to be my constant companion. Unfortunately, its barely-contained Windows heritage made it something of a dog in day-to-day use. Basic address lookups became tests of patience as I stood on sidewalks and waited for my lithe, almost-sexy-looking phone to churn through my contact list and return the name I asked for.
Not lean. Not mean.
When I traded the Q in for a BlackBerry, I spent an hour in-store scenario-testing updated WinMo machines -- by then, up to the 6.0-standard -- against everything else the store had. And still, I waited for even the most basic of tasks. For all its engineering prowess, Microsoft never integrated the lean-and-mean ethos that has always driven competitors who didn't already own the desktop OS market. Even today, claims on its Web site that, "It's like your PC just grew legs," illustrate the kind of disconnected thinking that continues to fuel the mobile unit's decline. Tech-conservative enterprises may like its security and Windows familiarity, but that's no longer enough.
Which brings us to Microsoft's second mistake: assuming that a great mobile OS was simply a pared down version of its desktop equivalent. Microsoft, which has subscribed to this mantra right down to the Start menu and cascading menus that until recently defined the UI, completely missed the mark on this one. We don't use handsets in the same way that we use laptops. We don't necessarily need to replicate the full-on interface and user experience of the average PC.
First, we don't have the screen real estate. What works on a 23-inch flat screen doesn't simply shrink to the 3-ish-inch panels on most phones today. And if you try to make it shrink (heaven knows, Microsoft has tried), the end result is a jumbled on-screen layout and confusing navigation.
Second, we don't have the time. It may be acceptable to wait a few seconds for our laptops to look up an address. After all, we have dozens of other windows running at the same time, so we're absolutely free to pop into any of them and work on something else until the machine completes the task. We can also heat up our tea, catch up on water cooler gossip, or simply sit back in our seats and relax. When you're in transit, you need that answer now. From an often underpowered, battery-deficient sliver of technology that you're using in the millisecond before an errant taxi mounts the curb and ruins your day.
Others innovate while WinMo stagnates
Apple, which wisely stripped anything remotely desktop-like out of its Mac OS X when adapting it for the iPhone, gets the need for simplicity. Likewise, Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry devices are often pilloried by tech-fashionistas for having an OS whose interface hasn't changed much in a decade, remains a model of stripped down simplicity. My BlackBerry may not incorporate every last feature from the laptop in my office, but when I'm zinging from meeting to meeting, I don't need every last feature. I just need the thing to work. And it does. Fluidly.
The success of Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market illustrate another key Microsoft weakness. Apple's 100,000 apps and Google's 10,000 dwarf Microsoft's Windows Marketplace for Mobile, which launched in October (for 6.5-based machines only) with about 250 titles. Last month, it tacked on a whopping 84 apps to that title, by finally extending the Marketplace back to WinMo 6.0.
While the oft-delayed WinMo 7.0 could have created some much-needed excitement before compelling new alternatives hit the market and shifted vendor attention away from Microsoft, it's becoming increasingly clear that not even a new OS can rescue WinMo.
Microsoft's acquisition last year of Hiptop vendor Danger Inc. shows it's not giving up just yet. Rumors have also swirled that the company's interested in acquiring RIM. Still, the Danger acquisition has already bitten Microsoft after a high-profile data loss in October. A possible RIM buyout would lead to similar grief, as it makes no sense to break the bank before you get your own house in order. On culture alone, a Microsoft-RIM linkup would be an integration nightmare.
After 13 years and countless kicks at the can, it's time for Microsoft to call it a day. Kill Windows Mobile, consolidate resources and skills from the shuttered unit as well as Danger and Zune -- which continues to impress with technically sophisticated offerings that languish on store shelves -- and pick one cohesive strategy. Then stick with it. And whatever the company decides, it has to move fast. By this time next year, the market, dominated by RIM, Apple, and Google, will be even less forgiving than it is now.
Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
The Black Screen Syndrome, or, Tech news in search of the apocalypse

Publié: décembre 3, 2009, 10:29pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Was the "Black Screen of Death" issue (KSoD) covered by Betanews earlier this week a real story? This is a serious question, especially in the wake of security firm Prevx's admission that it was very premature in its conclusions that KSoD incidents had been triggered by last month's round of Patch Tuesday updates.
Let's discuss this rationally. Although it does not appear to be an exploitable security problem by malicious users, and we have reason to believe it cannot become one, the KSoD problem (differentiated from BSoD, the "Blue Screen of Death," something else entirely) is a strange symptom that has cropped up on some machines over the years -- in our experience, some Vista-based systems. Some. It is a significant enough problem that when Betanews encountered it first-hand last June, and I discovered a way for users to fish themselves out from being stuck with it (without installing any new software), I wrote about it and presented a solution that, at least, worked for me.
A very fair question to ask, then, is this: What exactly did Prevx do last Friday that was any different from what Betanews did last June? In essence, it was Prevx that encountered the problem on its own systems, and that discovered a solution that may, possibly, work for consumers. It produced an .EXE that automates what appeared to be Prevx's solution; by comparison, I had the user go through several steps. But in that respect, we were quite alike. You might expect a security company to encounter problems such as KSoD during its research and offer solutions, whereas one might not necessarily expect such a discovery from a Web site with a big list of beta downloads and a news feed alongside it.
What made Prevx's situation very different from ours, in the end, were the following events:
Prevx suggested the problem had become widespread, calling it a "crop" that "could affect millions," without any evidence to prove that it was ever that widespread or could become so. Betanews reported the KSoD as affecting "a small number of Vista users since the system's debut three years ago, though that number appears to be growing steadily" -- an assertion for which we had obtained evidence.
Prevx made a guess as to the cause, and presented that guess as its professional analysis of that cause.
Prevx's explanation of its guess made no sense. Submitted for your review: "By the way - the cause of this recent crop of Black Screen appears to be a change in the Windows Operating Systems lock down of registry keys. This change has the effect of invalidating several key registry entries if they are updated without consideration of the new ACL rules being applied."
PrevX blamed Microsoft for the extent to which its guess made no sense. Apparently there was some rule change, and the fact that no one knows about it meant, from PrevX's perspective, that Microsoft forgot to tell us about it: "For reference the rule change does not appear to have been publicized adequately, if at all, with the recent Windows updates." (Microsoft's remarkable ability to be cited as having said something by virtue of having not said it, crops up again later.)
PrevX denied responsibility for its own actions. In a blog follow-up post yesterday, Prevx's Mel Morris wrote, "Referring back to the original post where the issue was first highlighted, we stated that there 'appear' to be many causes to the black screen issue...At no time have we categorically stated that these patches are the cause of the Black Screen problem...The emergence of this issue coincided with the recent set of Windows updates, therefore our investigations were focused on identifying if any of these could have been the cause of the problem."
Referring back to that original post, as Morris suggests, I notice "the cause" (singular), "recent crop" (collective plural), and "appears" (singular). I also see a reference to something called "the new ACL rules," which is something that we now know to be mythical. And as we all know, any change to Windows operating systems (plural) that takes place all at once, happens on account of a patch.
This reminds me of how local TV news "covers" a local lawmaker for "possible allegations," for example, of "possibly criminal corruption" connected with some "bizarre confluence of events" that "may have occurred." Rather than wait for a final report, a newscast will state, "Our investigation is ongoing...and we'll let you know what we find out."
One of these things is not like the others. One of these things doesn't belong.
However...PrevX's responsibility for the scare stops there. PrevX could have presented the issue in a more realistic light: "We encountered the KSoD ourselves, we fiddled with it, we've automated the script for a solution that fished our machines out of the mess, try it yourself if you get in a jam." By anyone's measure, that would have been a security company doing a responsible job of protecting the interests of its current and future customers.
But let's face an unfortunate reality that makes me, to borrow a phrase from Paddy Chayefsky's character Howard Biehl, "mad as hell:" All PrevX really did to start the firestorm brewing was post a blog entry with the headline, "Black Screen woes could affect millions on Windows 7, Vista and XP." That was the bait. Very little, if any substance, was necessary; and Microsoft's acknowledgement that it was looking into the issue was taken by the press as a confirmation that the problem was as bad as PrevX characterized it.
Next: Taking the deflated ball and running with it anyway...
Taking the deflated ball and running with it anyway
It was the BBC which gave undeserved legitimacy to the whole KSoD affair by running with the headline, "Windows 7 faces 'screen of death.'" The evidence of that story's existence is now waning outside of Google's indexes, as apparently the BBC's idea of a "retraction" is simply to erase its history. Even though the source of the original story, Prevx, effectively killed the body of the story by apologizing for having started it, it still had legs, so other sources ran with it. And kept running. When there was nowhere left to run.
As the London Daily Mail published yesterday, a whole day after the story was completely debunked, "Frustrated Windows 7 users are facing 'black screens of death' after logging on to their computers, Microsoft have confirmed. The software giant said they were investigating a disabling glitch that seems to particularly affect its latest operating system."
This adjacent to a mosaic assembly of pictures of computer screens, that forms the face of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sticking his tongue out. Particularly...Windows 7. Where exactly did that come from? PrevX said the problem affected systems going back to Windows NT (architecturally speaking, extremely unlikely). And Microsoft's responses to us, both formal and informal, indicated it had never indicated to anyone that Windows 7, particularly, was at fault.
The Mail's version of an "update" to this article, once it apparently came across the debunking evidence, was to add a paragraph toward the bottom basically stating, everything you just read next to the Ballmer tongue photo is false: "However, they [PrevX] have since retracted this claim and suggested malware could be the culprit."
The London Telegraph then followed up to this already ballooning myth with the headline "Windows 7 Black Screen of Death blamed on malware." That story suggested that, by Microsoft's having stated its investigations to have determined its Patch Tuesday updates did not trigger the condition, by process of elimination, Microsoft implied that malware was to blame. In other words, quite literally, what Microsoft did not say must therefore be what it meant to say, and thus, is what it did say.
The BBC -- which lent a lot of hot air to this balloon in the beginning -- ended up replacing its original headline with this substitute, headed "Malware suspected of 'black screen' issue," apparently following after the Telegraph. But having evidently been unable to confirm that it was Microsoft doing the suspicion, the BBC left the headline in passive voice -- not actually saying who, if anyone, suspected the existence of some malware out there. "Malware has been blamed for a problem with the Windows 7 operating system," the BBC's (replaced) story begins, now making the following assumptions: 1) Somebody found a piece of malware out there; 2) somebody investigated the malware and has concluded it caused the problem with Windows 7; 3) there's a problem with Windows 7.
Therefore, Microsoft's having stated it wasn't Patch Tuesday that caused the (non-existent) problem, must mean by implication it must be malware. So now there's a rampant virus targeting Windows 7.
How many folks out there have the (non-existent) virus? As of a few hours ago, we have a firm (non-existent) estimate: A major tech news service reports that some 50,000 PCs have encountered the KSoD problem. This having been gleaned from PrevX's recent statement on its blog that its maybe-it-will-maybe-it-won't fix for the problem was downloaded by 50,000 users.
A quick check of our own Fileforum shows that millions of Windows users have downloaded anti-virus utilities from us. By that same logic, millions of Windows PCs must be infected with viruses this very moment. My God! It's the Black Plague of Doom! (KPoD)
Although Betanews has seen reports from individual users of troubles with Windows 7, we have not uncovered even a single credibly verified incident of a Windows 7 user -- as opposed to a Vista user -- encountering the KSoD issue. Not one. And for those who would conclude that by "not one" we mean "one million," "not one" means "zero." Naught. Bupkus.
Will somebody please inform me: At what time in the history of media did it become acceptable, or even preferable, for "the truth" to become defined as something validated through repetition and amplified by nervous anxiety? The way Internet-driven media has evolved, it appears that the definition of a viable story is anything that advances what someone else has already published, regardless or even in spite of the facts.
If the Black Screen problem was small to begin with, a fair question to ask is, why did we report on it in June? My personal belief, as Managing Editor of this publication, is that our job is to help information professionals make better sense and better use of their computers, their software, their environment, and their workplace. Our June story became a story the moment I found a prospective solution. In fact, that's what the story was really about: a possible fix to a problem that anyone could encounter, probably through no fault of his own. So no, we weren't sensationalizing the problem, although we did have "black" and "death" in our headline.
If there is no "crop" of KSoDs (regardless of what the alternate universe says), then the continued existence of the problem was not a newsworthy event in itself. But a potential solution to the problem, regardless of its relatively sparse dissemination, is a newsworthy event.
However...and here's the sad part...It has become the duty of anyone who would dare to continue to bear the moniker "journalist," to report the fact that a widely reported news story is largely false. And therefore it also becomes the sad responsibility of any journalistic publication to take the heat for giving further weight and volume to a story, in the act of trying to diffuse it and remove weight from it. The essence of the complaints we received boiled down to this: Betanews is guilty for perpetuating a story that's not worth perpetuating. We legitimized the issue by elevating it to a Betanews headline, for a story that ostensibly pointed out its illegitimacy. In short, it's all our fault.
I offer great thanks today to my friend and colleague, ZDNet blogger Ed Bott, for giving credit to Betanews for reporting the Prevx story as accurately as we could, in the face of the dust storm of falsehood. As Ed wrote this morning, "If someone had exercised even a basic set of journalistic skills, this story might never have taken off. But someone decided that this sensationalist report was worth a lot of page views and hit the Publish button when it was half-baked."
Thank you so much, Ed. It's good to know we're not alone in this fight. There may have been a lot of publications that did exercise a basic set of journalistic skills, right off the bat -- they may have read through the PrevX blog post and found it lacked merit. But we'll never know who they were, because the headline, "Blog Post From Little-Known Security Company Lacks Merit," isn't worthy of a story either...at least, not until after the news from the alternate universe makes its way here, and is all over Twitter.
The real nightmare here, the new and fundamental reality that looks more like Utopia to Arianna Huffington, is that Internet services are now building their news services into repetition farms intentionally designed to perpetuate and amplify stories that seem true enough. Silcon Valley Insider's Nicholas Carlson did the world a service Tuesday by publishing the new Aol's news guidelines for its prospective news amplification farm of what may very well be some 2,500 (not making up this number) prospective freelancers, each of whom will likely be paid very little.
Journalism is apparently no longer a requirement there. As the editor of Aol's new RendedSpaces.com blog advises writers, "All we want to know for a pitch is: what's the story, who broke it (AP, NYT, BW, Bloomberg, etc.), and how you will advance the story if you are following someone else's reporting."
We have enough repeater services; and as was found to be the case with the Black Screen story, repetition is the driving force behind the news problem. At the risk of sounding like Rupert Murdoch, the aggregation of non-news gave it the legitimacy of a story produced by actual journalists. But in the absence of a solution to the bigger problem of earning enough revenue to pay real journalists to produce actual news, online publishers are resorting to merely "advancing" whatever story generates the most excitement, embellishing it with implied non-realities along the way.
This is the malware whose viral impact is eating the news business alive. When the BBC cannot distinguish fact from fabrication, we are all truly endangered.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
Microsoft's Bing Bar takes the clutter and complexity out of browser toolbars

Publié: décembre 3, 2009, 9:33pm CET par Joe Wilcox

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

I despise browser toolbars. They're ugly, clutter up the browser and reduce viewable content space. But unexpectedly, I've found a better toolbar. This old crankypuss might soon be spending time at the new Bing Bar, which is a helluva good name, by the way.
There's much to like about Bing: The advertising, the name and most importantly the approach to user interface design. I love Bing TV commercials, by the way. Good advertising uses familiar motifs, scenarios and situations, stuff that most anyone can relate to. Familiarity is important. Who can't relate to information overload -- too much needless information coming too fast to process?
The Bing search page user experience (UX) is in many ways superior to Google, by the way the home page makes information easily available without loads of complexity (Sure, we could argue day and night about search term accuracy). Good design also should lead to discovery. Those photos on the Bing home page aren't just pretty. Moving the mouse across the image reveals hidden boxes and text -- reminiscient of photo comments on Flickr -- that lead to additional searches. For example, on today's pic: "These fish are swimming in the last confederate state to be admitted to the Union. Where are they?"
The UX carries forward to Bing Bar, which replaces MSN Toolbar. Bing Bar is UI and UX design done surprisingly well, for starters because of its spare appearance and generous use of white space. Bing Bar doesn't feel cramped or cluttered, characteristics that define most browser toolbars. Then there are tools for greater informational discovery, which are good for the user and for driving additional search traffic to Bing. Bing Bar is available for Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8 or Firefox 3.x
Buxton Bucks Convention
From broader UI and UX perspectives, not just Bing, I'm really liking many recent Microsoft products, which are cleaner, less cluttered, less complex and full of features available really only when needed. Windows 7 is one example, for sure. I'm convinced that one man, Bill Buxton, principal researcher for Microsoft Research, is main catalyst driving dramatic UI and UX changes throughout Microsoft. Buxton talks about good design broadly, culturally, historically, socially and software developmentally. He joined Microsoft in 2006, and it wasn't long after that the company's UI design started to dramatically improve. Some leaps were already midway, such as Office's version 2007 UI makeover.
Buxton recently spoke about UX at the Business Innovation Factory. Regarding technology, he asserted: "Without informed designed, it's more likely to be bad than good." Buxton emphasized: "It's an ethical obligation to make best efforts. To make the right decisions." Whoa, who talks ethics in design?

Buxton has a stereotypical mad scientist look, and he rambles like one. He looks to me a little like Uncle Monty from "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events." I've embedded the video from his speech so you can see.
"For every 'generation n technology,' its role is to fix the problems of n - 1, but keep the good stuff," Buxton told BIF attendees in October. "But what about that? That's also a value judgment. It's all about ethics. It's all about values."
Bing Me Values
No question, user interfaces and the experiences they bring are all about values -- the values of a country, society or corporation. Search is intrinsically about values, because the search engine makes a value judgment about what's important to the searcher. Perhaps I should say "values judgment." Often that value judgment is wrong, which is one of the points of Microsoft's Bing "Search Overload" marketing. Too often, keywords don't lead the searcher to what's important to him or her.
In the late 1990s, when Yahoo was a search leader, people hired by the company made the value judgments about search rankings. In this decade, Google's algorithm makes the value judgments, and not always around the most sensible criteria. I consistently find that in helping my daughter do background research for a history paper on the French Revolution that Google search leads to popular destinations that are meaningless for her topic.
Bing Bar -- and this week's exciting Bing Maps improvements -- are values-oriented products. They reflect changing Microsoft values about what constitutes good user-interface design and values for making search more meaningful. A common undercurrent for both -- and so long it must be topic of a future post -- is storytelling. I predict that storytelling will be a major Bing differentiator over Google search in the coming 12 months.
Funny aside: Bing Bar also is a confection. Here's one of many recipes on the Web for making Bing Bars. Or perhaps you'd like to buy a Bing Bar from Palmer Candy, which debuted the candy bar in 1923.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
Online advertising evolves away from display, toward interactive software

Publié: décembre 3, 2009, 6:01pm CET

By Dan Neumann, MacNewsWorld

Digital advertising is evolving beyond the desktop computer, leaving companies relying solely on Web sites and display advertising woefully behind the eight ball. More and more, brands are relying on software development to create engaging consumer experiences that span multiple open platforms. Branded mobile applications are fast becoming an important element of this new digital ecosystem, as evidenced by Apple's announcement that its App Store had surpassed 100,000 apps in early November.
This shift away from more familiar mediums for brand communication has important implications for the composition of, and interaction between, established groups within agencies. The pervasive dynamic between technology and creative groups is not always conducive to more technically demanding campaigns because of a fundamental disconnect between these two groups' proficiencies.
Companies need people who are passionate about the creative aspects of branding and effective messaging, as well as the technical elements of software development. Without someone to bridge the divide, brands risk winding up with apps that are either unsuited for their purpose or projects that make unrealistic demands on developers.
While an influx of "do-it-yourself" app platforms have reduced the cost of entry into this new channel, these solutions often depend on inflexible frameworks that limit creativity, leading apps to fall short of the mark when delivering an engaging customer experience to a brand's target audience.
Considering that enterprises must still invest a significant amount of capital into these template-based apps, it makes more sense to leverage a creative technologist's expertise rather than create a cookie-cutter app. Leveraging one app build and re-skinning it for multiple brands is an efficient way to enter the channel, but companies need to focus on how their consumers engage with their brand within the context of a mobile app to ensure they are creating a positive experience for customers.
CTs bring creative and technology groups together to develop branded software. That's made plain by their title, but what does that really entail? How do they create value? The first area seems like the most obvious but is critical to the success of any marketing campaign -- education and evangelism.
To attract interest in a new technology or platform, a CT needs to be able to communicate its value in terms that everyone, both clients and agency peers, can understand. People are scared of what they don't know. It is still difficult to connect the dots from clicks to sales to real ROI. So then, if after 10 years, the industry is just now getting good at calculating ROI for display advertising, who wants to invest in tactics that don't have established measurement practices attached?
CTs are the catalysts behind big, new ideas that get marketers excited and then validate their strategies by identifying key consumer interactions within an app/platform and help analytics groups craft measurement plans that will accurately tie back to strategic goals.
The ability of a CT to identify best practices before they are established provides confidence and guidelines for brands seeking first-mover lift. In a development phase, CTs should ensure that their best practices are observed within the architecture of the application.
While this can be very difficult to do, depending on the category, the key here is to remember that the number of downloads is not the only means to measure success. Because it does a brand little good if an app is downloaded and seldom used, consumer engagement is an important metric that should be taken into consideration.
A key consideration when establishing metrics for success and promoting your application is its role within the brand's broader campaign or messaging. It is the CT's responsibility to craft sensible connection points between the campaign and your app.
How does your audience move from media, to engagement, to realization of a strategic marketing goal? Does your online advertising promote the app? What sort of CRM model makes sense for people using your app? Should actions from within the app generate a post to Twitter or Facebook?
What, if any, content generated by your campaign should be consumed from within the app? Where are the friction points between discovery, download and regular usage? A CT should be able to create user-flow and experience map documents that illustrate the experience as a whole, and how users are expected to move through various elements of that experience without requiring users to create an account.
While the experience architecture is important, CTs create value for clients and agencies by understanding the nuances of users' interaction on new platforms and develop apps that work within these behaviors.
Consider developing an application for a newly open platform -- Verizon's FiOS widgets, for instance -- that allows users to stream video content from your library. Do you make search a primary navigation element without realizing that users will need to rely on a virtual keyboard? The better alternative would be to design a menu structure optimized for the remote's D-pad.
CTs are often the quickest route to effective branded apps because they can serve as translators who are fluent in the languages of technology and creative groups. This skill allows them to help brands temper cutting-edge ambitions with the realities of building experiences that work across multiple platforms in multiple channels.
As connected open platforms approach ubiquity, opportunities for marketers are proliferating at an astounding rate. A brand's ability to capitalize will be vastly improved by staffing with people who can predict which platforms have the potential to alter consumer behavior and which will fade into the sunset.
Dan Neumann is an emerging platforms strategist for San Francisco-based creative marketing firm Organic.
This story was originally published on MacNewsWorld
© 2009 ECT News Network. All rights reserved.
© 2009 BetaNews.com. All rights reserved.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
Comcast deal for NBC Universal is about content, not broadband

Publié: décembre 3, 2009, 5:20pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

After this morning, there should be no question in anyone's minds whatsoever as to what Comcast's deal with General Electric for control of NBC Universal is about: NBCU is a huge producer of cable TV content, and Comcast would like to be the parent company of that producer. The deal isn't so much about Hulu, or new media, or creating some walled garden around content distribution, as many would have believed and expected.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts made this fact pretty clear during Comcast's investor earnings call this morning: This is not a technology deal. Comcast, the pipeline company, is already making deals in the technology side, including providing 10% of the operating capital of Clearwire. The pipeline company is going ahead with its plans to produce its own Web-based on-demand distribution network, which Broadcasting & Cable has learned will be called Xfinity. (Comcast must have used the same consultant Sprint used to come up with "Xohm.") And in response to direct questions today as to whether Comcast's indirect acquisition of NBCU's stake in video service Hulu would change Comcast's plans for deploying "TV Everywhere," Comcast COO Stephen Burke responded that he believed NBC's restraint in releasing its own content to Hulu was "smart," and that Comcast would let NBC continue in that regard.
And when pressed as to whether Comcast would press Hulu to create a premium, for-pay service, CEO Roberts emphatically responded, "That's certainly not in the cards."
"Two Comcasts"
The pipeline company will continue to do its own thing. Roberts told investors this morning, "We basically are creating two Comcasts." Here, NBCU becomes essentially Comcast, the content company, whose formal title Comcast's presentation to investors this morning intentionally leaves up in the air, at times calling it just "JV." (One possibility that springs to my mind: CNU, with the logo formed from Comcast's crescent merged with Universal's dual arcs.) As Comcast's charts to investors this morning illustrated, Comcast's operating cash flow taking the joint venture into account will be 97% driven by cable program distribution and cable channels. Keep in mind that the whole "distribution" slice of the OCF pie (80% by itself) will take into account the multiple platform hops that content goes through, and the Internet is one of those hops. So in that regard, this is an Internet deal.
But the reason Comcast went after NBCU in the first place -- a reason it now freely admits -- is the attractiveness of affiliate fees, those fees that DirecTV and Verizon and Dish Network and Time Warner Cable and their ilk pay to carry programming on their services, as well as to share resources. Even in this down economy, affiliate fees have managed to rise at a rate of 12% annually, thanks in large part to the almost singular efforts of Comcast.
The real reason for the deal
Assuming the joint venture were already in operation, Comcast estimates that its operating cash flow Comcast's fiscal year 2009 -- the amount of its revenue that the company can spend on itself, after expenses -- would have been $2.8 billion. An estimated 82% of that amount would have come from cable channels, largely through affiliate fees.
During this morning's call, COO Burke tried to play down some of these figures, saying that the annual rate of increase in affiliate fees may taper down into the "mid-single digits" over time. "Trees don't grow to the sky," he said. But you could almost hear the smirk in his tone of voice, as though he knew exactly where the jackpot was and believed he had the key to it.
Here is where we realize the extent to which the deal upsets the general belief about the order of precedence in the television industry. Analysts saw this right away and pounced on it: Comcast made a very important point this morning of stressing the contribution of its network of regional sports channels -- something it already owns -- as an element of the deal, as if that were something Comcast was buying. Why would Comcast phrase it as something it was adding to its arsenal if it already owned it?
The answer lies in attribution: By associating Comcast's existing regional sports network with NBC Sports -- the producer of the Olympic Games, the home of Sunday Night Football, and the employer of sports programming legend Dick Ebersol, whose position there appears very, very secure today -- the perceived value of Comcast's RSN rises, just as if that property were acquired. And that's important because regional sports is the tool Comcast has successfully used in recent years in its bargaining with cable and satellite systems for substantiating its ever-higher affiliate fees. Local sports, often at the high school level, is a staple of cable programming. When affiliate deals aren't renewed, Comcast yanks its RSN feeds from subscribing content providers. Customers immediately complain as STBs get turned back in, and before long, the affiliate deals are renewed.
Where regulators will likely strike first
The NBCU deal lends value to Comcast's principal bargaining chip in maintaining high affiliate fees. In a statement this morning, the president of the American Cable Association, Matthew M. Polka, pointed to this issue specifically as a reason why government regulators should nix this deal.
"Without broad government intervention, regulators in Washington, DC will see Comcast-NBCU wield its unprecedented power to drive up artificially the cost of its programming, particularly for its newly acquired local broadcast TV stations and its 'must-have' national and regional cable networks that air live sporting events," stated Polka. "Without restrictions, the new media conglomerate will also leverage its enhanced market power to force other pay-television providers to distribute all of its combined Comcast-NBCU programming on basic tiers, regardless of consumer interest in paying for this content."
And that's another key element: Comcast already owns the Style Channel, the Versus sports network, and the E! entertainment network, which not every pay-TV system in the country feels it needs to cover in its "basic" service. NBCU, meanwhile, operates two of the country's hottest cable properties, Bravo and USA. Comcast certainly could -- and probably will -- offer the entire slate to pay-TV systems in an all-or-nothing deal for basic tier subscribers. If you want Bravo, it may tell them, you gotta have Style.
The new order of media
As was made evident today, the NBCU deal was not about The Tonight Show or Law & Order or even NBC Nightly News. It was about Top Chef.
If federal regulators do raise objections to or concerns about this deal (as is likely to happen), they will be about affiliate fees. They will not be about broadband service rates, which are an entirely different part of Comcast's business. Comcast is not restructuring here. And as Comcast's executives made clear, its intention is for all of the free cash flow generated from the new NBCU, or whatever it's called, to be reinvested in NBCU's existing businesses. So revenue from cable will be redirected to cable and cable content, not to offset possible future revenue declines from broadband service. Thus the theory that Comcast could appease regulators by saying revenue from cable, television, and film could help keep broadband utility rates low, goes out the window.
In fact, the two elements whose names form the company Comcast will control, NBC and Universal, are frankly incidental players in all of this. The NBC broadcast network will contribute 11% of revenue to Comcast following the joint venture's creation, Comcast estimates, and 0% of that revenue will contribute to cash flow because NBC is a money-losing business. Comcast expects to garner more cash flow from Universal Studios' theme parks than from NBC. Universal, meanwhile, will provide about 2% of Comcast's OCF.
This is not a merger deal like AOL Time Warner or CBS + Viacom, but a change in control. And while those mergers failed spectacularly, this buyout may yet succeed. Still, deals of this nature often result in spinoffs of properties discovered to be of lesser importance. And it's altogether possible that, come 2012 or so, the two most expendable components of this deal, sold perhaps to some interested investment banking consortium outside of US borders, will be the NBC Television Network and Universal Studios.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
Apple, can you do for video what you did for music -- perhaps saving us all from NBComcast?

Publié: décembre 3, 2009, 3:36am CET par Joe Wilcox

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Last month's rumors about Apple talking to networks and Hollywood about TV show subscriptions got me thinking about what CEO Steve Jobs & Co. should do for making video content more accessible. I'm musing even harder today, given the pending announcement that Comcast will buy NBC Universal. The deal should have wide-ranging impact for cable and online TV content and companies that distribute it -- everyone from Hulu to Apple.
Now would be a really good time for Apple to rethink its video content strategy and make changes that will hold what I'm unaffectionately calling NBComcast at bay. Since I'm in one of my know-it-all moods, I'd like to offer a few suggestions to Apple. It's time for Apple to leverage its strengths by offering something like "Complete My Album" or "Upgrade to iTunes Plus" for movies, TV shows and music videos. Such iTunes features could change how people electronically rent or buy video content.
Timing is right to do something, given recent buzz about Hulu and YouTube charging for TV shows. Then there is NBComcast to consider, which merger should include partial Hulu ownership. Maybe Apple should renew those rumored Hollywood/TV network talks. The suits suddenly have reason to worry about NBComcast and what muscle it can wield over program development and distribution.
An Apple deal for watching programming through iTunes -- at the rumored $30 a month -- ought to look a helluva lot more appealing with Comcast gobbling up NBC. Apple should have most of the billing and technology infrastructure in place from renting movies. Surely it couldn't be too hard to add TV shows.
Something else in favor of making some big iTunes video changes: Paywall is a suddenly popular topic thanks to News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch. Not that Apple gives away much. At iTunes it's pay, pay, pay. Some of the paying is whacky. Yesterday, I stumbled on obscure, almost-one-hit-wonder-band Gun Hill Road at iTunes Store. Apple sells 1971 album "First Stop" for $4.99 -- say, a good deal for 22 songs -- but $1.29 for each track. Huh? What kind of pricing strategy is that -- more than 28 bucks at the single track price? But Gun Hill Road is off topic.
Back on topic: Apple, like everyone, is cranking out promotional emails for the holidays. Occasional iTunes sales and promotions do some of what I want to suggest ( and hopefully I haven't missed any important perpetual promotions or features): iTunes Store should apply the upsell "complete my this or that" music strategy to video. It worked for music, why not video? Of course, content copyright holders and distributors would have to be willing parties to the changes (if rumors be true about TV subscriptions, Apple already is talking to the right copyright holders). My requests/suggestions:
Complete My Purchase: People renting movies, particularly in HD, would be given a limited-time option to apply their rental fee to the full purchase price. So, if someone rents "Push" in HD for $4.99 and really likes it, he or she could buy the movie for $15 instead of $19.99.
Complete My Season Pass: Similarly, if someone buys a few episodes of "House," he or she could purchase the remaining Season Pass without paying for the already purchased ones.
Upgrade to HD: Someone who had purchased movies, music videos or TV shows in standard definition could go HD for the price difference between the formats. Long ago, I bought "Battlestar Galactica, Season 1" from iTunes in standard definition (HD wasn't available at the time). I would pay the difference for HD.
I'm convinced that options to upgrade to HD or purchase from rentals would extend the utility of the iTunes Store. How many more people would rent, if they knew of an option to buy discounted from their rental? How many people would buy standard definition today knowing they could upgrade to discounted HD when available?
Surely the licensing issues can't be insurmountable. Already, Apple offers standard versions with HD purchases for iPhone and iPod touch. Content providers would profit from the upsell, right? I ask that as a question, not knowing margin differences for rentals versus sales. I know that margins tend to be higher for subscription music content than tracks that are sold. I don't know the breakdown for video content.
So in closing I have to ask: What suggestions would you make to Apple about iTunes Store video content? Additionally, what do you think of Comcast plucking the NBC peacock's feathers? Please answer in comments.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
Five compact digital camera myths and realities

Publié: décembre 3, 2009, 1:23am CET par Joe Wilcox
By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

The holidays are fast approaching and geek gift shopping with it. This year I will post several shopping primers for making the best decisions in buying tech gear. This first installment is about compact digital cameras and what features do and don't matter. It's particularly important because geeks used to buying PCs might wrongly think that more of this or that matters for digicams. Misplaced emphasis on the wrong features can lead to disappointing purchases.
Some background: I'm no professional photographer, but I do know digital photographic gear. I bought my first digital camera in 1997, the 1-megapixel Kodak Digital Science D120 (OK, I didn't know better). The D120 was one of the first 1-megapixel compact digicams selling for (barely) under $1,000. I purchased additional compacts from Canon, Kodak, Olympus and Sony over the next couple of years, but no compact satisfied until the 3.3-megapixel Canon PowerShot S20 in summer 2000. I got plenty of use from the S20, including shooting the opening of the first Apple Store in May 2001.
Since 1997, I've used about two dozen different digicams -- compacts and digital SLRs -- from Canon, Kodak, Leica, Nikon, Olympus, Sigma and Sony. These include, since 2007, the Canon EOS 50D, Nikon D200, Nikon D90, Olympus PEN E-P1 and Sigma DP1. When I say that I used these digicams, I don't mean tested.
In this first primer, I'll offer tips specifically for buying compact cameras that also can be applied to entry-class dSLRs. A follow-up post will offer my holiday pics for compact digicams that should satisfy the most discerning gadget geek or photographer -- even the pros. By the way, I define a compact as having a non-removable lens, meaning four-thirds, micro four-thirds and rangefinder digicams belong in a different category.
1. Megapixels don't matter. One measure of PC greatness is processor clock speed or number of cores. Greater often is better, but the same isn't true for compact digital cameras. More megapixels can actually be worse, because of compact digicam's smaller sensor size. Increasing number of pixels over a smaller CCD or CMOS sensor causes distortion, artifacts and grainy appearance -- or noise, as ISO increases.
More megapixels doesn't mean better; this photo was taken with 5 MP compact in 2003
For many smaller compacts, 5-megapixels delivers optimum performance. I took the picture above in 2003 with the 5MP Canon PowerShot G5, which produces sharper and more pleasing photos than many, newer compacts sporting more megapixels.
Among the compacts I'll recommend in a later post, nearly all are 10-megapixels -- not 12 or 14 MP -- and these cameras are designed to appeal to more experienced photographers. By comparison, more megapixels is usually good for dSLRs, where the sensor size is much larger and the pixels aren't as tightly packed. More typically is better.
Here's another perspective on why more megapixels don't matter. To double the resolution, number of megapixels multiplies by four. So a 12-megapixel image has twice the resolution of a 3-megapixel image. Apple's iPhone camera, at 3 megapixels, may not take the best photos, but plenty of people print or post acceptable images. Meaning: More megapixels isn't necessarily better.
2. Sensor matters more than megapixels. Digicams with larger sensors can produce much better photos even if megapixels are less than a camera with smaller sensor. With larger sensors, pixels are less compacted. As previously mentioned, as pixels compact across a smaller surface, image quality degrades and artifacts increase. For example, photos tend to be noisier as light decreases, in essence because of how little light must spread out over so many pixels.
The effective size of a 35mm frame is 36mm x 24mm, which is the sensor size of the "full frame" Canon EOS 5D Mark II -- a 21-megapixel dSLR. Many lower-costing dSLRs use "single frame" sensors that measure 16mm x 24 mm, such as the 6-megapixel Nikon D70. By comparison, the Canon PowerShot S90 -- a compact I would recommend -- is 10 MP with 1/1.7-inch CCD sensor. The Nikon P6000 sensor is same size as the S90 and a shocking 13.5 megapixels.
A "prime" lens delivers outstanding clarity but narrow depth-of-field
Pixel count isn't the only consideration. Smaller sensors require a shorter focal length to achieve the same angle of coverage as larger sensors. This results in numerous photographic irregularities along most of the focal range, such as vignetting.
Sensor quality and size are hugely important, particularly in compacts, where there are already so many compromises compared to dSLRs.
3. A good lens means everything. This rule is more true for dSLRs, where lenses can be swapped. Photo pros know that the lenses are more important than the camera body, and they hold their value and remain useful longer -- decades. Even for compacts, lens is hugely important but often overlooked in the sales process. D`oh, should it be rocket science that the optics -- the glass through which the photos are captured -- matter big time? Some general tips:
- Optical quality matters. For example, Sony uses a higher optical quality "G" lens on its 10-megapixel Cyber-shot WX1/B. Ask about the glass when buying a compact. Canon and Nikon are optics companies.
- Fixed focal length -- "prime" -- or shorter focal length zoom lenses are better; images will be sharper with fewer artifacts. Long zoom ranges are generally undesirable in compact cameras with small sensors and more megapixels.
- The more light the better, particularly for compacts. The PowerShot S90 or Leica D-LUX 4 come with f/2 lenses which let in lots of light, overcoming some of the limitations of the camera's smaller sensors.
4. RAW is more desirable than JPEG. At least RAW should be an option. Most compacts only shoot photos in JPEG format, a flat file that can be manipulated with limitations. RAW isn't a format but raw data coming off the camera's sensor, and it can be manipulated extensively by numerous photo-editing software applications. Example: I've taken pictures at dusk that were too dark because of available light. But the camera focused correctly. Using software, I could change the exposure and fill-light on the RAW image, salvaging the photo. A JPEG photo would have been throwaway.
Some compacts, like Canon PowerShot G series, shoot RAW
Some compacts that can shoot RAW: Canon PowerShot G10, G11 and S90; Leica D-LUX 4; Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3K; Sigma DP1, DP1s and DP2.
5. Compacts don't match dSLR performance or output. I have yet to see a compact digicam that can equal or better a dSLR. But some come close in some areas. For example, the Sigma DP1, DP1s and DP2 all deliver exceptional image quality -- better than even some dSLRs. It's a combination of a high-quality "prime" lens, dSLR-size sensor and unique "Foveon" sensor technology that captures red, blue, green in layers -- reminiscent of film. Color reproduction is exceptional, and there is no discernible vignetting or other artifacts in RAW photos. Disappointingly, these Sigma compacts also are slow shooting, and they're ergonomics are rough, at best.
A different example: I recently started using a Leica D-LUX 4 compact, which has surprisingly fast shutter response. I have yet to see the shutter lag so common in compacts. Shutter response is one of the major benefits of choosing a dSLR over compact. Click. Click. Click. But speed of shooting doesn't change that the Leica camera comes with a smaller sensor and is handicapped by other limitations common to compacts.
The point: Compacts are great, and it's even possible to use one shooting RAW to fill for a dSLR. But holiday shoppers will want a dSLR if better performance, greater photographic quality and choice of lenses are priorities.
In a future post, I will pick the top compacts for Holiday 2009 shoppers. Please watch for it.
[Photo Credits: Joe Wilcox]
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009