When did complaining become innovation?
Building a new business is tough. And even though the internet has
significantly reduced barriers and created incredible opportunities for
entrepreneurs around the world, building a successful technology-based
business is still challenging.
Unfortunately, the challenges sometimes lead companies that are labelled as 'innovators' to do something innovators usually don't: complain. The past week has given us two examples of this.
Why big media always misunderstands Google
Google TV may be the search giant's most ambitious initiative yet, but its success is far from guaranteed. While the time seems right for television-internet convergence, making it happen is going to be hard work.
One of the biggest difficulties Google has with Google TV is getting content owners on board. Recently, a number of American television networks, namely ABC, CBS and NBC, blocked consumers from accessing video content on their websites through Google TV.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda: the movie studios and their Netflix stock
Last month, beleaguered video rental chain Blockbuster filed for
bankruptcy. While the company's demise can be blamed on a number of
factors, it's hard to ignore one: the rise of Netflix.
Netflix, which is now an $8bn corporation trading at just over
$153 per share, looks poised to capture a big part of the nascent streaming
business.
Big media puts the pressure on Google
Times are tough and that's especially true for big media companies, including publishers like newspapers.
Advertisers are cutting back and that means that all online publishers are competing for a piece of a smaller pie. While traffic figures aren't the be all and end all of ad sales, traffic does matter.
The Web Week in Review
It was an interesting week. As news of the debate over the possible bailout of the United States' struggling automakers captured the headlines and largely dictated the mood in the major financial markets around the world, newspaper titan Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy and the Pulitzer Prize Board decided to fully embrace online journalism.
ITV updates its video player
ITV has been tweaking its online catch up TV service, and has introduced a few improvements for customers viewing video on its website, using Microsoft Silverlight.
The service is going to be rebranded as the 'ITV Player', which is at least a bit more distinctive than 'catch up'. As well as a new name, ITV needs to be improve the usability of its online video, so what difference has Silverlight made to this?
'Ad nausea' an online problem too?
Last week, AdAge.com published an article discussing the disgust consumers are developing for the increasing number of ads that are being aired over and over again.
AdAge.com's Brain Steinberg cites an ad that Toyota has flooded the airwaves with that led to the creation of a Facebook group with nearly 9,000 members that is calling for the ad to be killed.
The Web Week in Review
Perhaps I'm simply tiring of the economic news (or becoming immune to it). Increasingly, I find myself being drawn more and more to random news stories unrelated to the flurry of bad news that seems to come on the economic front.
Tis the season to be jolly, right? Here's this week's hodgepodge of news and it's not all bad.
The BBC is still not sure how to link out
The BBC has released the results of its experiment with in-text links, and it seems the corporation is still not sure how to deal with the issue of linking out from its articles.
The BBC Internet Blog reports on the results of the experiment, which used the Apture service to add links to the text of articles. 90% of the feedback received during the two week trial.
A case study in 'social media' success
I'm a professed 'social media' skeptic. I believe that much of the hype around social media is unjustified.
I believe anyone arguing that every corporation should be seeking out 'conversations' and becoming 'friends' with customers on social networks largely reflects a misguided and naive marketing philosophy.
