Category Archives: Technology
Adapting TV Channels For The Internet
Television networks are finding ways to stay relevant in a time when they have to compete for eyeballs with other forms of media. Namely, the internet. Saw this story about how the traditional networks are incorporating their online offerings and portals when trying to sell advertising space to companies.
The CW pitched itself on Thursday as “the first fully converged network” — but it has competition on that front. TBS and TNT, two cable channels owned by Turner Broadcasting, rather dramatically said that two years from now, they won’t be linear channels, they’ll be “branded video destinations” that just happen to have a linear component.
This is exactly how I believe the “networks” and television channels will exist in the future. No longer do you have a list of channels with scheduled programming. People want to watch programs when they want to watch them, on-demand. However, it is difficult to find “new” things to watch. One of the undervalued aspects of networks is that they curate shows. When you turn on a channel that you liked before, you are buying into the idea that the network will put out more product you like. Think HBO building a rapport with Sopranos so you trust that Game of Thrones will be good.
It could be difficult to do this with random websites. Do you google “cop drama” and hope you find something good, and not some 5th grader’s home movie project? Networks could serve as these curators. TNT already is moving to this with their “We Know Drama” slogan. TBS is “Very Funny”. So, if I am in the mood for a sitcom, I could go to TBS’s iOS app, or website, or TV channel – whatever my preferred medium, but know I was getting a certain quality and type of program.
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Piracy and Game of Thrones
Over the week I’ve seen the headline over and over describing how HBO’s Game of Thrones show is set to be the most pirated TV show ever.
Most of these people blame HBO, because the only way to get the show rightfuckingnowthissecond is to subscribe to HBO. Which means you have to subscribe to Cable, since you can’t just pay HBO to stream their programming over the internet. Otherwise, you have to wait 6 whole months for the series to come on DVD (or iTunes). So, the only solution is to illegally pirate/download it. Of course.
This idea has been discuss ad naseum over and over lately.
“HBO hasn’t helped the problem by making the show tough to watch online for the young and cable-less,” notes Greenberg. “The show isn’t available through Hulu or Netflix, iTunes offers only Season 1, and using HBO’s own streaming site HBO Go requires a cable subscription.”
For the millions of Americans who don’t subscribe to HBO, or who may not even watch shows on a television, this means there is no legal way to watchGame of Thrones. If you only watch TV on your laptop, there’s no way you’re going to pay $50/month for cable and another $15/month for HBO. -Forbes
My favorite response to this idea is by Andy Ihnatko:
The single least-attractive attribute of many of the people who download content illegally is their smug sense of entitlement.
Here’s the terms of use for commercial content: you have to pay for this stuff. This means either you need to wait for it to become commercially available, or if you torrent it today you need to buy it when it gets released. So long as you buy it as soon as it’s possible to do so, I can confidently reach for my “No Harm Done” rubber stamp. Some content is commercially unavailable because the publisher or distributor has no desire to ever release it. I’ll even go so far as to say that downloading it illegally is a positive thing; you’re helping to keep this creative work alive.
If you avoid purchasing the media in some form, however…you’re just one of those people who prefer to steal things if they think they can get away with it. Simple as that. Get off your high horse.
The world does not OWE you Season 1 of “Game Of Thrones” in the form you want it at the moment you want it at the price you want to pay for it. If it’s not available under 100% your terms, you have the free-and-clear option of not having it.
But, I’ll ignore the “I demand HBO’s awesome well crafted expensive to produce content on my terms immediately instead of in a method that makes money for them” argument.
The other aspect of this argument is “See, HBO, look at all these people who want your show? That is money on the table because you won’t give it to them in an easy to access format.” There is of course the idea that they would have to give up lucrative licensing deals and start a whole new consumer services division.
If HBO were to break off and do a stand-alone service they would be giving up those subsidies and would incur huge additional costs in terms of support, billing, and infrastructure that they currently aren’t burdened with. This would make producing the content they produce now – including extremely expensive shows such as Game of Thrones - impossible. At the very least, it would be a huge risk.
Not going to happen. But let’s skip that part too. What I like to focus on is the hypocrisy. Pirates and piracy supporters (sigh) argue that if HBO would just offer this up, then all these people would just start paying HBO for the content. Except, that when its convenient, they make the exact opposite argument. These same proponents argue that Hollywood’s losses are overstated because “not every pirated copy equals a sale.” Not everyone who downloads a song on BitTorrent would have bought that song on iTunes they argue. They are sampling/getting something they wouldn’t actually buy. So, why would this change when it comes to Game of Thrones? No one seems to be able to address this shortcoming. You simply cannot argue both ways.
Readability and Content Theft
John Gruber has brought some attention to Readability and, in his opinion, their sketchy actions regarding how they compensate content creators.
Readability is a service that allows you to save web pages to an app, so that you can view them later in a clean format without ads etc. You can also pay them to automatically deliver updates to these pages to your app automatically. The problem Gruber had with it is that this means if you run a website, you are stripped of any ad revenue from viewers who read the page on your website. Readability claims to pay 70% of any money they get from the subscription service they provide to content owners. But, he contends that they aren’t really making it easy to collect that money, but are benefitting from all the goodwill of claiming to.
I pondered more about this because of a comment made by Gruber on his podcast with Dan Benjamin, The Talk Show. He mentioned that if a magazine company were to collect a bunch of different articles from other sources, take just the content but not the ads and then sell it, those sources would be pissed. More than that, I thought, it would be copyright infringement. Copyright law protects content creators by giving them the right to control distribution of their content. Someone else can’t take an essay I write and republish it for profit. Nothing about changing the media from paper to the web changes that.
The key fact here is that when you get a new article in your Readability app, and you share that or go look at it, you are sent to a copy of that article on Readability’s servers, stripped of the ads, to make it easy to read. So, Readability has made a copy, which they host on their own servers.
The pertinent case on this is Perfect 10 v Google. Perfect 10 is a pornography company (side note: porn has a weird amount of intellectual property precedent establishing cases) that sued Google because Google included thumbnails of their images in Google’s image search service. Google would cache copies of the images on their servers to make search results faster. Google was protected largely because they were able to make a Fair Use defense. Namely that they are providing a service in image search that didn’t take away from Perfect 10′s profits.
I believe Readability would not be able to claim this same defense, since they are directly competing with displaying this content with the original content creators. Further, they are affecting the creator’s profits because the ads aren’t being viewed by readers.
This would be very worrisome, and recently Readability changed their software so that when you share a link it goes to the original content instead of the ad-free Readability version.
However, I was discussing this with a colleague, and he brought up that Readability could probably be protected under the DMCA safe habor provisions since users are the ones directing the service to remove the ads. Whether this is true even with subscription services is up for debate.
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Evolving Ecosystems
Up until the developments in the mobile sphere, computing platforms were largely stagnant and stable. Largely there was the Windows system, that was widely adopted and easy to create systems for. There was the more curated Apple platform with its restrictions, and the very customizable and open Linux world.
Now however, these players and one notable addition, are seeing the hardware change which requires new and different ways of interacting with the operating system. Not surprisingly, there are different approaches.
Apple
Arguably Apple changed the direction of the mobile universe, marking a shift from hardware buttons and text interfaces with their iPhone and iOS system. Sure there were Windows Mobile and Blackberries before iPhone, but they were very different from how they look today. (Well.. maybe not Blackberry so much…)
Apple has two distinct systems. If you are on a computer, you are using Mac OS. (recently changed to OS X) If you are on a mobile device, you use iOS. This requires app developers to make two versions of apps if they want to reach users on both computers and mobile device platforms. And the way you interact with each system is very different. Mac OS still has a lot of dependence on menus and clicks and using a pointer.
The issues cropping up is whether as our mobile devices become more powerful, can the simpler iOS interface really allow us to do everything we want to do while computing on the go, or do we need something with more tools, and their neccessary complexity?
Microsoft
Microsoft has learned that focusing solely on enterprise users isn’t going to keep they afloat. More and more corporations are adopting Apple devices, mainly because employees bring them in and expect them to just work. So Microsoft is seeing its wheelhouse being chipped away at. Further, they largely lost the consumer preference already to Apple with their shiny simple to use devices.
So, Microsoft is changing their focus. They have the attitude of an upstart. They revamped their mobile OS with Windows Phone. It was lauded by critics and users, so they are applying the aesthetic to their desktop in the upcoming Windows 8. Instead of having two distinct platforms, they have stated that 80% of the code will be shared, making app development easy. They even have put a distinct focus on bringing mobile finger based gestures to the desktop. This is a huge gamble, both in that Windows users hate change, and will not like seeing a very different desktop starting at them. But also because it goes against Apple’s belief that the mobile and desktop spaces are meant to be interacted with differently. It will be interesting to see if this pays off.
That’s because the software company isn’t planning to simply share features between distinct operating systems, as will Apple. Rather, Microsoft hopes to introduce nearly identical experiences (or as close as the hardware will allow) to each. – TechBlock
Microsoft is hoping that people will appreciate having the same interface on all devices. Simpler, less things to remember. But do we want to paw at our desktop screens like we do our phones?
Google has what could be the safest play. They are platform agnostic. Sure, they have Android on phones and tablets, but largely they are web based. Google simply wants you to interact with their various products – no matter the device.
They put out Android, with its faults and more attractive attributes. But they also have released Chromebooks, Google TV and of course their Chrome browser on almost every platform available. And you can access their search, email, and maps from any platform. The downside of this strategy is that fickle users aren’t locked in like they are to an Operating System. It is much easier to change your default search engine than it is your computing platform.
And Google has admitted this is a potential issue.
Rubin said that the biggest problem for Android on tablets is “there’s no organized way for consumers to recognize it as a viable platform,” and that Google wants consumers to see its tablets as part of the broader Android ecosystem. “The educated consumer realizes it now that they’re either picking the Apple ecosystem or the Microsoft ecosystem or the Google ecosystem… we’re going to do a better job at making people understand what ecosystem they’re buying into.”
For Apple users, you get the nice cooperation of devices designed to work together smoothly. For Microsoft you get a large ecosystem of devices that can fit your specific needs. Google needs to find its selling point.
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Windows 8 And The Consumerization of PCs
Windows is going to go through another refresh later this year. Windows 8 will bring the “Metro” interface that Microsoft has used on their Windows Phone OS (which I really liked using) and lately their Xbox to the PC. Some have decried this as a mistake. Largely, this is the same reaction that happens whenever a change happens on Facebook, or anything else in life – we react negatively to the unfamiliar, even if it is better. I’m going to examine why I believe this is the right move for Microsoft.
![Windows 8 [Metro-Design]](http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6032/6383367973_6bf43bb08d_z.jpg)
The PC market has gone from completely nerd dominated to widely adopted by the mainstream. No longer something the common person feels intimidated to use, computers are how many of us get our news, entertainment and communicate. As such, more and more of what is done on a computer is not what is traditionally “computing” but more like using an appliance or consumer device: browsing the web, playing music, etc.
As this change happened, the focus of the market for computers has shifted from businesses and their IT departments to consumers. More and more attention is paid to enticing the home user to purchase a new piece of hardware or software. This is a problem for Microsoft because their strength has always been enterprise customers – from their Office software to how their Windows software could interface with all kinds of interchangeable hardware.
Steve Jobs has been quoted as saying that while some people need trucks, most of us can get by with just a car. Sure, some people need to haul lumber or tow something – the real world equivalent of photoshop or programming but most of us only need a “computing device” in a limited capacity, to consume. Browsing the web, listening to music, etc. We are just driving around. Apple realizes this and thinks that most users can get by with an iPad instead of a full fledged Mac computer.
Microsoft lost a lot of home consumers to Apple when people made the switch for the easier to use systems that Apple makes. Microsoft realizes this, and is now in the process of making its PC software more consumer friendly. Bigger brighter icons, touch friendly interface hiding all the ugliness. Plus, their new Windows 8 operating system will be able to be used on both Tablets and PCs, avoiding the issue of developers having to develop a tablet app and a desktop app – like they have to with iOS and Mac OS.
But what about those truck drivers who actually need to use a Windows device to do something? Well, Microsoft is handling this much better than they did in the past. Instead of forking their systems for Home and Business users (like they did with 95 and NT), they treat the Metro Interface as a “skin” on top of traditional Windows. You can exit out of Metro and get to the desktop if you need a more familiar Windows look and feel. This is similar to how Windows users could always get to the DOS terminal or Mac users can pull up a Unix Command Line. So, they avoid alienating users who wouldn’t upgrade for fear of not liking the new system and being stuck.
photo credit: gynti_46 via photopin cc
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What Needs To Be Fixed in Windows Phone
I had the chance to try out Windows Phone a few weeks ago. I came away very pleasantly surprised. It is elegant and simple without feeling like it is lacking any features. In fact, many features that require apps on other platforms are built into the OS on Windows Phone. This leads to a nice speed advantage at certain tasks, namely social sharing features.
However, there is one feature that kept me from making the switch (reverse switch?) from Apple to Microsoft. Notifications are terrible on Windows Phone. Notifications happen in two ways. First, is through the Live Tiles that are the face of Windows Phone. The home screen on Windows Phone is a series of squares and rectangles that you get to customize. Kind of like Widgets on Android,they can show updated information like weather or mail notifications. Some apps, will show updates on the tile. One could imagine a Twitter app that shows a number for new @ replies or DMs. The second type of notification is a bar that comes down from the top, in an identical manner to iOS if something happens. For example, if someone posts on your Facebook wall a pop down appears for about 10 seconds saying “Joe Smith posted on your Wall”. You could click this banner and get taken to the post in the Facebook App.
The problem is that Windows Phone doesn’t store old notifications. In iOS, if you miss that banner, you can just pull down from the top and see a list of your missed notifications. You cannot do this in Windows Phone. If you miss a notification, it simply disappears into the ether! Did you win that item you were bidding on in eBay? Did you get pinged about a new job on LinkedIn? Hope you open the app in the near future bc if you miss the notification you have no idea.
I suppose Microsoft’s solution is that you add a Live Tile and get the tile to update you next time you look at your phone. But if I think about all the things that notify me on my iPhone – news apps, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Skype, eBay, ESPN – I don’t want ALL of these tiles to be on the Home Screen. It kind of defeats the purpose.
Even the original iPhone system of notifications, where you got a pop up that you had to act on – dismiss/ok/open/whatever – at least notified you that something was going on. That should be the chief concern of a notification system in an OS. I have it set to notify me because I want to see this when something happens the next time I look at my phone. Windows Phone flat out fails at this. It is the most glaring example of what separates the otherwise fantastic OS from its competition.
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What Needs To Be Fixed In iOS
I’m a big fan of Apple’s mobile operating system. I think largely it is successful because of its ease of use and visual polish. There are some features which is is missing that other competitors have, but I think the platform allows these to be easily implemented by third parties, so it tends to not be a big fault.
However, there is one area where iOS is severely behind the competition and it should be addressed in the next update.
Apple needs to revamp it’s Maps app.
The Maps app has gone largely unchanged since the phone launched. When the iPhone debuted, Android was not out yet, and Google was the obvious partner with their superior Maps product. However, since Android has become Apple’s chief competitor in the mobile space, one can’t help but feel the Maps app on iOS has been neglected as a result.
Above all, Apple needs a turn by turn voice guided navigation feature. Google’s phone has done this since Android 2.0. Windows Phone now has a turn by turn function built into it’s Bing Maps app. This is a major differential selling point for these other phones. See Samsung’s latest ad – a campaign I tend to snicker at as smelling of jealousy but on this point I think they are spot on.
Note how they mention “it just comes with it” as opposed to Apple where you have to buy an app for another $40 on top of your new phone.
Second, Google’s maps on their Android platform has added features that make Apple look silly by comparison, such as indoor maps of airports and malls. (Again, Windows Phone does this too, something that really should make Apple ashamed considering how young WinPhone is)
Worse, Apple’s lacking of updating their maps shows how reliant they are on Google. Google has little incentive to update a competitor’s maps app, it would take away a great selling point.
Therefore, Apple needs to come out with their own Maps app. There are hints they might be working on this. They acquired a 3D mapping software company. There was a small controversy when it was discovered your iPhone was keeping track of your location – and theories Apple might be collecting this data for mapping purposes.
Hopefully this is the big new feature of iOS 6. Apple needs to stay innovative in the face of a (potentially negative) constantly updating Android platform. This is the weakest part of the iOS platform currently.
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Emoticons in iOS
One of the lesser touted additions to iOS 5 was the ability insert emoticons (called emoji) on the iphone in imessage and texting to other iOS devices. Technically this was available before, but you had to install sketchy apps from the app store and do some light messing around with the OS. Now the process is super simple and apple approved.
Basically you now get a second keyboard that lets you insert smiley faces, or other symbols in your texts.
In order to enable this feature there are a few really simple steps. Go to your Settings App. Pick “General”. Scroll down and choose “Keyboard”. Hit “International Keyboards”. Now, click “Add New Keyboard.” Scroll down and pick “Emoji”. That’s it!
Now to use it, go to your iMessage app. There is a globe in the bottom right. Tap that and you get the emoji icons. Tap again and you go back to your normal keyboard.
CES 2012 Predictions
Three simple predictions regarding CES this year.
1. Ultrabooks are going to explode.
