Showing posts with label ReadWriteWeb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ReadWriteWeb. Show all posts

Sunday, January 08, 2012

The Movie Industry's Non Innovation

Jack Valenti, former President, Motion Picture...Image via WikipediaSteve Blank has a great blog post cross posted on ReadWriteWeb.

Why The Movie Industry Can’t Innovate and the Result is SOPA
This year the movie industry made $30 billion (a third of it in the U.S.) from box-office revenue. But the total movie industry revenue was $87 billion. Where did the other $57 billion come from? ..... From sources that the studios at one time claimed would put them out of business: Pay-per view TV, cable and satellite channels, video rentals, DVD sales, online subscriptions and digital downloads. ..... Today it's the Internet that's going to put the studios out of business. Sound familiar? ..... Why was the movie industry consistently wrong? And why do they continue to fight new technology? ........ But why does the movie business think their solution is in Washington and legislation? History and success. ...... when they hired Jack Valenti, who ran the studios' lobbying efforts for the next 38 years. Ironically, it was Valenti's skill in hobbling competitive innovation that negated any need for studios to develop agility, vision and technology leadership. ....... The incumbents tend to have short-sighted goals and often fail to recognize that more money can be made on new platforms and distribution channels. ...... Ironically, the six major movie studios have a great technology lab in Silicon Valley with projects in streaming rights, Video On Demand, Ultraviolet, etc. But lacking the support from the studio CEOs or boards, the lab languishes in the backwaters of the studios' strategy. Instead of leading with new technology, the studios lead with litigation, legislation and lobbying. (Imagine if the $110 million/year spent on lobbying went to disruptive innovation.) ......... The fact is piracy is rampant in all forms of commerce. ..... Grocery and retail stores euphemistically call it shrinkage. ...... SOPA gives corporations unprecedented power to censor almost any site on the Internet. ...... What the music and movie industry should be doing in Washington is promoting legislation to adapt copyright law to new technology- and then leading the transition to the new platforms. ..... Studios are run by financial managers who have no corporate DNA to exploit disruptive innovation
I think of the Internet as one big farm. It is the farm that feeds you mindfood. Movies are mindfood. Of all technologies that were ever invented for the creation and consumption of mindfood, the Internet is the best by a wide margin. The movie executives fighting the Internet is farmers saying keep me away from the farm. What kind of farmers are these people?

Sunday, January 01, 2012

Tens Of Billions Of Devices

English: Russian wrist watch "Командирски...Image via WikipediaThe smartphone as a form factor has been firmly established. The tablet as a form factor has been firmly established. There will be new generations of laptops, tablets and smartphones that will respond to new developments in software, hardware and connectivity. But the basic form factor level innovation now perhaps has moved to things that will be smaller than the smartphone. In an earlier post I called it the wrist watch. But the wrist watch is only one of 100 possibilities. By the time you get to small, smart flying objects you are looking at some serious damage.

The wrist watch metaphor is erroneous since most of these devices will not have screens. They will simply sit there and collect data, lots of it, like the fly on the wall. The data thus collected might be displayed on the screens of the larger form factors.

There was a wonderful article I read on the topic at ReadWriteWeb a few days back that I have not been able to dig up. But there is a similar post on AllThingsD.

Beyond Tablets: The Next Five Computing Form Factors

Monday, November 15, 2010

Facebook's Gmail Killer Email: The Expectation Is In The Air

This is icon for social networking website. Th...Image via WikipediaThis day - Monday - is going to be all about Facebook's email service. It has been touted as the Gmail killer. That is a tall wall to climb. If they deliver, that will create a new wave for them.

I think they will present something that is pretty compelling. This is Facebook, after all. But as to how much of a departure from Gmail it will be, that is anyone's guess.

I personally am very glad that a company the size of Facebook is tackling the inbox. The inbox is so raw. And I hope this step by Facebook will make Google sit up a little. It has been lazy with Gmail.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Phones Not Tied To Carriers

I took this photo of my iPhone and its SIM slot.Image via WikipediaLaptops don't come tied to cable internet companies. Why do phones come tied to phone companies? You should be able to buy a phone, and it should be wi-fi enabled, and you should not have to pay anything in addition to what you pay for your internet access, and you should have Skype on your phone, and that is it. Smartphones are app heavy in the first place. All they need is internet access. What they need is wi-fi.