Radar Waves

Why the iPhone is like Barack Obama

After careful consideration, I've decided that I feel very similarly about two new products that have been recently introduced to the American market: the iPhone and Barack Obama. I don't have time for a thorough, prosaic explanation, so for now, I'll reduce it to the language of the board room meetings that no doubt produced them both -- bullet points.

PROS
- black (in a field where white has been the norm)
- sexy
- sounds great
- light years ahead of the competitors

CONS
- functionality hindered by necessary but regrettable attachment to a bloated, corrupt legacy organization that controls access to consumers
- first generation product; unproven in a real-world environment

FINAL ANALYSIS
- i want to believe, but i'm still skeptical
- will wait until next generation deployment, when the bugs are ironed out, before i decide to adopt

UPDATE: Apparently I'm not the first one to make this comparison (thanks, Eliot!)

 

 

IP movies-on-demand about to explode

There's been a recent uptick in what the intelligence-types call "chatter" -- all about soon-to-launch video-on-demand services. iTunes has apparently cut a major deal with Disney, while Amazon signed on a bunch of other majors. Both services should be popping up any second.

Also, apparently, the iTunes/DIS deal is pegged to the release of a widescreen video iPod. This is kind of tantalizing to think about -- have they finally replaced the buttons with a touchscreen? Will we be able to turn the thing sideways? And just how many degrees of abstraction are involved in a touchscreen version of a clickwheel emulator? If this news is true, Apple is once again edging out ahead of the pack -- cinematic aspect ratios are becoming normative even for TV broadcast, so RIP the square screen. Of course, the PSP has been doing the letterbox thing for well over a year by now, but who's counting?

In related news, Apple's apparently also set to launch the iPod phone. So says Digg, anyway. Good thing I just blew all that dough on a Treo.

BTW, check out the LATimes tomorrow (9/6). I'll be opining on this stuff.

UPDATE: Also in video-on-demand news, today the Sci Fi Channel posted the first of 10 original content webisodes gearing up to the October 6 premiere of Battlestar Galactica season 3. This is very smart cross-media programming, brand extension, targeting the hardcore fanbase, etc -- but, also, my wife and I are just plain stoked. Yeah, we're nerds -- wanna make something of it?

UPDATE 2: And here's a link to the LA Times story.

Napster CTO weighs in on Zune

Napster CTO Bill Pence has written a pretty cogent answer to critics' concerns that Zune signals the end of Microsoft's support for its PlaysforSure DRM format (and therefore for the digital music subscription industry as we know it). He argues that Microsoft has every reason to develop Zune and PlaysforSure in parallel, the way they do XBOX and PC games.

Interestingly, the piece also has a thinly-veiled threat to Microsoft: abandon PlaysforSure, and the music industry may abandon DRM in return (fat chance, but I like his moxy):

the disappearance of an open platform could spell the end of DRM technology altogether, at least for digital music. Since I believe strongly that the market in the end must and will be based on interoperable digital formats, if DRM is used to erect barriers to that goal, then there is no question it will be swept aside, and the industry may end up with what many have believed was the obvious choice from the beginning: open MP3 files.

The name says it all: why Microsoft's Zune won't kill the iPod

On Friday, Microsoft finally confirmed strategically-leaked rumors that it will be releasing an iPod-killer under the Zune brand later this year. I don't even know where to begin on this one.

First of all, the brand name alone is indication enough that MSFT is in above its depth. I mean, c'mon --a $245 billion market cap, and the best thing they can come up with is Zune? Sounds like the name of the comic relief alien on Bablyon 5. Didn't they do any freaking focus group tests? Seems like every time a big, established company wants to get in on some major trend they've missed, they come out with a half-baked product starting with the letter Z (marketing consultant types probably tell them the Z means they have "the last word" on the subject or some such stuff). Does anyone remember Disney's abortive effort to create an online kids portal called "Zeether"? Honestly, that was my first association.

Second, MSFT is apparently abandoning all of its established codecs and formats for the Zune. No WMA, no Janus/Plays4Sure, no URGE, no nothin'. WHAAAAAAAA????? That's like the Pittsburgh Steelers abandoning the football on their opponents' 80-yard line during the final seconds of the Superbowl. Or like Zinedine Zidane headbutting some guy right before the world cup match goes into overtime. I just don't get the strategy here; MSFT spends years and countless millions earning the goodwill of content providers, retailers, and other major music brands by creating the only functional cross-platform music formats, and then it just does an about-face, abandoning those partners with little or no warning? That's totally nuts.

Third, MSFT seems to think that imitating Apple's strategy is a good idea. This is so wrong for so many reasons. First of all, it's notoriously difficult to replicate a successful "walled garden" strategy. iPod/iTunes only works because it has pitch perfect integration of excellent (and super-sexy) hardware, software and retail. And even with Apple, the center cannot hold indefinitely; the reign of good king iPod is drawing to an end (but that's a post for another time). MSFT definitely can't compete on sexy, it has little or no retail expertise, and the chances of successful integration across the various company divisions required for this folly seem pretty close to nil. And besides all that, Apple can only get away with its ruthless monopolization (Will they ever license FairPlay to third party retailers? One can only hope...) because it's (mis)perceived as a scrappy underdog with good social intentions. MSFT, on the other hand, has been on the losing end of several antitrust suits (most recently in the EU), and is unlikely to escape the scrutiny of regulators if it continues to wall its gardens off from all the other potential cultivators of the digital music loam.

Fourth, XBOX team leader J Allard is apparently being called in to spearhead the Zune project. Cool, he certainly appears to be the one person over there who really understands (a) hardware, and (b) consumers, but wait a second -- who's going to be taking care of stuff over at XBOX while he's doing this? They're still number two, right? Seems like a bad time to turn their back on one of the few bright spots in the company portfolio. (Incidentally, XBOX is a decent brand. It's got the same late-alphabet desperation as Zune, but it's also got the what-will-they-do-next techy cachet of the iPod -- you know, a random letter placed before a nondescriptive noun.)

Fifth, what's the business model again? I thought that MSFT was only involved in hardware to the extent that it helps sell their core asset -- software. With Vista coming around the bend and the digital living room wars finally heating up, you would think MSFT would be working every ounce of mojo it's got to make sure that it controls the industry-standard DRM formats. But apparently all that's flown out the window now. So where does the money come from? Certainly not selling music, which has nonexistent margins for a la carte, and an Apple-hypnotized customer base who seem to despise subscriptions against their own best interests. Maybe they hope to get their money the same way Apple does -- by selling devices, with those nice, fat, 30 percent margins. Of course, Apple only gets those margins because they own the stores. Ok, then -- let's say MSFT sees a 15 percent margin on a product that retails for $300 (there's gotta be some price competition, right?). That's $45 per unit. How many are they going to sell? 1 million? 10 million? Even if they somehow sell 20 million devices, that delivers less that $1B in profits. That's a single-digit percentage boost for a company that made $33 billion in gross profit last year. Is that worth all the risk and mishegas?

Sixth, the Zune isn't just being billed as an iPod-competitor; it's supposed to be an iPod killer. But from the little we know of the feature set, I just don't see how this can possibly happen. It's got video -- whoop tee doo. It's got WiFi -- so does the PSP, and it hasn't killed the iPod yet. It interfaces with the XBOX -- wow, just what I need -- an MP3 player that talks to the second-place video game console. But, wait, you may say -- because of the WiFi, the Zune will allow users to trade songs with each other wirelessly. OK, that's kind of cool, but between record label restrictions and whatever DRM the thing is going to carry, it's a far cry from a portable LimeWire. So if I find someone else who also owns a Zune, who likes the same kind of music I do, they might have permission to send me a song that will probably evaporate from my player in a matter of days? It just sounds kludgey and unneccessary. Wireless will be very important for mobile music, but WiFi won't -- the real opportunity is in either WiMax or Carrier-based wireless services (can't wait to get Rhapsody or Pandora on my Treo, for which I'll gladly pay Sprint an extra $5 a month). Besides, the odds are Apple is already planning to integrate some kind of wireless into its 2007 iPods. So the feature differentiation vanishes in a puff of smoke.

All that being said, I'm hoping to finagle a free demo unit from MSFT when it finally ships. I'm a sucker for these things. Who knows, maybe I'll become a convert. Stay tuned...

Future media tech: remote control brain implants

Ohboy, I love stuff like this. Nature just published an article describing a new device called BrainGate, which allows people who have lost the use of their limbs (and, I would guess, people who can still use their limbs as well) to operate machines just by thinking about it:

MN [test subject] opened simulated e-mail and operated devices such as a television, even while conversing. Furthermore, MN used neural control to open and close a prosthetic hand, and perform rudimentary actions with a multi-jointed robotic arm.

Of course, it's important to let the technology be used first to help disabled people live more independently, but you can see where this is going. Fifteen years from now, the Pentagon announces thought-controlled drone airplanes and battlebots (incidentally, before Firefox was a browser, it was actually a lame Clint Eastwood pic about though-controlled planes... I saw a few minutes of it on the big screen because I was too grossed out by the earwigs in The Wrath of Khan to stay put in my own theater). Then, thirty years from now, we finally get the payoff: trickledown to the consumer market, where the PS9 wages a market war against the WiiBox12 for thought-controlled MMORPG fighting action. And VonageSprintATTBellizonGoogle charges an extra $295 per month for thought-to-voice messaging.

Or maybe I'm wrong and porn once again leads the way. Maybe the big thing will be thought-controlled StripperBots^TM [shudder].

Or maybe I'm waaay wrong, and we consumer-types end up on the receiving end, rather than the giving end, of the thought-control machines [super-shudder].

Maybe it would just be in everyone's best interest if this technology stayed in the healthtech sector. Even better, a robot from the future and a renegade madwoman with a whiny teenage son should destroy it before it evolves any further.

EV-DO. . . NOT!

I've spent the last month on tenterhooks, waiting for my wireless carrier (let's call it  "Quik," recently merged with "SpecialTel") to release its version of the new Palm Treo, dubbed the 700p. This is a cool phone -- EV-DO (providing 400kbps-2mbps downstream), support for MS Office and PDF, integrated Bluetooth, MP3 player software (although no stereo playback, and minimal integrated memory - duh!), 1.3MP camera, and the ability to use the phone as a laptop modem when WiFi isn't available. Almost worth the $400 (post-rebate) plus $15 per month to upgrade from the lower-speed wireless web plan.

The phone finally appeared on the Quik site this week, with a tantalizing $100 "web special" discount in addition to the standard $150 instant savings. But here's the catch: it's not available online for existing customers. Nor is it available in Quik's brick-and-mortar stores; they're not even sure when they'll have the units in stock.

Why would Quik diss its existing customers, focusing entirely on new customer acquisition? Probably because the company knows that, after the telecom M&A blitz of the last few years, we basically have nowhere else to go. Didn't the proponents of industry deregulation and consolidation argue that it would benefit consumers..?

In typical form, I unloaded my ire (mildly) at a poor CSM. Rudy, whatever fluorescent phone bank you inhabit, in whatever third-world country, I apologize.

Quik Agent>Rudy has joined the call.
Rudy>Thank you for choosing Quik web chat. My name is Rudy, how may I assist you with your  Quik.com order today?
Quik Agent>Aram Sinnreich has joined the call.
Subject: Web Chat>This is a Quik Customer, with the subject: Purchase Replacement/Upgrade Phone, in zipcode 9xxxx
Aram Sinnreich>hi
Aram Sinnreich>i am interested in upgrading to a treo 700p
Aram Sinnreich>i am eligible for a $150 rebate
Aram Sinnreich>but the phone isn't available to existing subscribers online, and the stores aren't stocking them yet
Aram Sinnreich>can you help?
Rudy>You will have to call 800-xxx-xxxx to order that phone.
Aram Sinnreich>alright, thanks
Rudy>You will not be able upgrade online.
Aram Sinnreich>that is lame
Aram Sinnreich>quik should make the phone available for upgrade online, to cash in on customer enthusiasm
Aram Sinnreich>i am all ready and willing to plunk down $400 plus an extra $15 per month, you'd think quik would want the money...
Aram Sinnreich>...can you please relay my sentiments to quik?
Rudy>Yes, I will. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Aram Sinnreich>thank you.
Rudy>You're welcome, thank you for using Quik together with SpecialTel web chat. Feel free to contact us during our business hours of 9am-11pm Monday-Friday and 10am-8pm Saturday & Sunday. Have a wonderful day.

Incidentally, the number Rudy gave me was not correct. After finally getting through to another CSM, I was told I had to call a different department. After I was transferred, and navigated through the VM system again, I was put on hold for about half an hour. Then the line picked up, and I could hear voices in the background, but no one spoke to me or answered my voice. After three minutes of talking into the void, I hung up.

No EV-DO for me.

UPDATE: I bought the phone, of course. Called customer service a few more times, found someone who could work it for me. I feel like a kid on Channukah. Will report back with kudos/gripes.

UPDATE 2: According to the customer service rep I spoke to on 5/31, the unit was supposed to be shipped immediately, and would arrive today (6/5). I called today for a tracking number, so I could coordinate my schedule w/ delivery, and was told that although the warehouse "accepted" the order on 6/3 (not sure what the lag was about), it still hasn't shipped. Quik couldn't tell me when it might ship, or offer to notify me when it does, so I'll just have to call back and check in a couple days. Nonetheless, the CSM assured me I should have the Treo in hand "3-5 business days from today." We shall see...

UPDATE 3: After raising a stink, I eventually got the phone. All in all, I'm pretty happy with it.

The cons: I've never gotten anything like 2Mbps, and all the streaming content costs extra $$ and I haven't yet figured out free workarounds for Pandora/YouTube/Rhapsody, and it costs extra to use it as a mobile modem (the sales rep told me otherwise), and it doesn't synch with Google Calendar, and it has no onboard memory, so I had to buy an SD card, and VersaMail is very buggy, and you have to pay extra for voice dial, which doesn't even work with bluetooth headsets.

The pros: love the Palm OS and its big ole developer community, love the relatively high speed, sound quality is pretty good, hardware is pretty fall-resistant, screen is nice. It replaces my laptop handily in a lot of situations, and I'm Flickring like crazy. And it's new and expensive enough so that people say "oooh" when I whip it out.

Modding a "dog whistle" for teens

We love MIT's advertising lab blog, because its unearths all that is wacky, wonderful and weird in the world of marketing and media. they also tend to find an advertising angle for new technology, even when there isn't one readily apparent.

so this one was a leap for them, but of interest to us, since it involves modding a technology used to control and manipulate teens behavior (essentially a "dog whistle" only teens can hear, used to keep them from loitering outside of stores) and co-opted it for their own use. Since most people under 20 can't hear the tone, a few tech-savvy and resourceful teenagers recorded the sound and have been virally spreading it amongst teens as a ringtone. Since ringtones must be turned off while at school, these allow students to hear their phones ringing - right in front of their unsuspecting teachers.

talk about turning the tables on technology. love it.

New new media: tongue-based VR

First read about this a year or two ago, but now that DARPA's investing, it seems like it'll become a reality: scientists are using the tongue as a computer interface. The initial app I read about was helping vision-impaired people to "see" by delivering video information encoded as bumps on the tongue. Now DARPA's delivering infra-red vision through the same method, and allowing soldiers to control devices sans fingers.

The reason they can do this, apparently, is because the brain has its own form of machine code, and all sensory experience can be reduced to this level. This means that ANY sensory experience can be transcoded into ANY other sensory experience.

Is anyone else thinking what I'm thinking? Let's see, how do all new media technologies get their start? First, you get a bunch of academics trying something out. Then the military invests. Then, early consumer adoption is driven by... Anyone?...

We're folding up our shutters, selling our stocks and putting everything we've got into tongue-porn. Imagine the possibilities! Seriously, though, this is way cool. Except for the goofy green hat and the mile-long tube sticking out of the user's mouth. Someone call Apple and start them working on the iTongue.

UMD R.I.P. -- Hurrah for Synergy!

Another proprietary, super-secure Sony format bites the dust. Only a year after PSP's U.S. debut, and despite the device's overall success (28% market share by year-end 2005), the UMD movie format is dead in the water. Two major studios have stopped shipping the format, and Wal-Mart is yanking it off the shelves.

Why? Because no one is buying them. Let's take a look at the feature set, and see what's behind this malaise:

• Lower quality than DVD (let alone Blu-Ray/HD-DVD)
• DRM'ed up the wazoo (neither rippable nor writeable)
• Can't be viewed on a TV screen
• Can't be played on a device other than PSP

Wow, who wouldn't want to buy one of those at $15 a pop? Let's take a look at emerging consumer trends in the video space, and see how the UMD fares:

• Increasing quality demands
• Ripping, burning, remixing
• Burgeoning home theater market
• Focus on universal formats

Hmmmm. In the meantime, the PSP keeps getting hacked to allow DivX playback functionality, despite a constant barrage of firmware upgrades. Maybe the consumers are trying to tell Sony something....

The real question is, how many proprietary formats does Sony have to burn through before it realizes that "synergy" between its filmed entertainment and consumer electronics divisions doesn't mean using one as a hammer to drive consumer adoption of the other? Outside of the magic Apple kingdom, that kind of strategy just doesn't fly any more (and even Apple is now supporting Windows on its hardware).

Then again, Sony's got a lot of smart people working there. Maybe the strategy adds up over the long term. Let's see. If each failed format represents $100M in lost revenue or sunk costs, and each successful format represents $2B in bonus revenue, and they only succeed one out of ten times, they lose (10 X $100M = $1B) total and win (1 x $2B = $2B) total, which means they net a healthy profit of $1B for all their troubles. Even if that's true, though, is the net gain worth pissing off countless consumers, retailers, content providers and hardware manufacturers? Sure, a buck's a buck, right?

Ironically, this move will probably boost the value of UMD movies among a small enthusiast community, thanks to the sudden drop in supply. Guess I'd better start hoarding them for my wife, who's a PSP junkie.

HD-DVD is here!!! Does anyone care?

The first HD-DVD player is now available in Japan, and we're expected to see it for sale in the U.S. in a matter of weeks. But what with format wars, a weak dollar, and a flagging film industry, it's anything but certain to become a hit. I'm still on the fence...

Cons: What's with these format wars? Didn't the film industry learn anything from Beta vs. VHS? More recently, the music industry has failed to supplement sagging CD sales with next-gen optical media because they couldn't choose between SACD and DVD-Audio. Despite the fact that players have been on the market for years (at low prices, no less), discs are selling like coldcakes. And who can blame consumers for their confusion and frustration? Also, with the dollar in the dumps, it's going to be increasingly difficult to price foreign CE imports at mass adoption levels and still turn a profit.

Pros: Unlike the high-def music format wars, consumers actually care about the outcome here. As I keep saying, we live in a visual culture. Sound quality has consistently devolved over the last 20 years. CD sounds worse than vinyl, MP3 sounds worse than CD. By contrast, visual quality is going up, up, up. HD TV's still cost thousands of bucks, but Best Buy can't keep them on the shelves. This high install base of format-neutral display devices will increase demand for content that justifies the investment.

Expect PS3 to boost Blu-Ray disc demand (if and when it actually ships), and Windows Vista to boost HD-DVD disc demand (if and when it actually ships), but a true mass market won't emerge until we stop our bloody warring and make sweet love.