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Miniweb's Woomi Now Live on Samsung Devices in U.K., Coming Soon to U.S.
An item from late last week missed my radar: Woomi, the cloud-based content services platform for connected devices from Miniweb, officially went live on Samsung connected TVs and devices in the U.K. I wrote about Woomi
last October and was impressed with how its approach skirted the "browser vs. no browser" choice most connected devices are making, instead focusing on bringing content in via their app. I caught up with Miniweb's CEO Jerome de Vitry yesterday to learn more about the U.K. launch and upcoming plans.
Jerome said that Samsung believes it has around 500K connected devices deployed in the U.K. with the majority of them March, 2010 or later vintage, capable of handling the Woomi service. Of these, Samsung estimates about half of them have been connected (remarkably, a lot of people who buy connected devices don't actually connect them; go figure). Though it's very early on, Jerome said that about 5K people have already accessed the Woomi app, which is featured on the home Internet@TV screen, alongside Netflix, Pandora, Amazon VOD, etc.
Categories: Devices
Topics: Miniweb, Samsung, Woomi
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Not a Sports Fan? Then You're Getting Sacked For At Least $2 Billion Per Year
Last night 100 million plus people tuned into the Super Bowl, once again highlighting the game's singular popularity. But aside from this huge once per year spike in sports enthusiasm, a simple fact remains: if you subscribe to pay-TV services and are not a sports fan (or are just a casual one), you are paying a lot of money each month for very expensive sports-oriented cable TV channels which you mostly don't watch. This degree of wasteful overspending, which could amount to at least $2 billion every year (as I'll detail below), creates a mile-wide opportunity for entertainment-oriented over-the-top entrants to prosper.
The value of sports programming was a topic we tackled last week at the MIT Enterprise Forum (panelists included Mark Cuban, Avner Ronen, Paul Sagan and me). Moderator Woody Benson challenged us at the start with how he could reduce his current $260/mo cable bill. As part of the discussion, Mark volunteered that pay-TV operators probably spend around $10 per month in licensing fees just for sports-oriented cable channels (these include channels like ESPN and its sister networks, TNT, and Regional Sports Networks, "RSNs" like NESN and Comcast SportsNet here in the Boston area and others). Mark estimated that this adds up to about 25% of the total monthly amount pay-TV operators spend on programming. My sense is that Mark's $10 per month amount might be a little high, but since he owns the NBA's Mavericks and sees the TV deals, he's in a good position to know.
(The video starts with about 40 minutes of one-on-one discussion between Mark and Woody and then shifts to the full panel)
Categories: Sports
Topics: Comcast SportsNet, ESPN, NESN, Netflix, RSN, TNT
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Quite a Week for M&A In Online/Mobile Video
It's been quite a week for M&A in online and mobile video. On Monday, KIT Digital announced it was acquiring Kewego, KickApps and Kyte. Then today Cisco bought Inlet Technologies to flesh out their Videoscape platform and Tremor Media reportedly acquired mobile ad manager Transpera. That's a lot of activity for just one week, and points to how key players are jockeying for bigger slices of the online and mobile video market. The trend will no doubt continue.
What do you think? Post a comment now (no sign-in required).
Categories: Deals & Financings
Topics: Cisco, Inlet, Kewego, KickApps, KIT Digital, Kyte, Transpera, Tremor Media
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Hey Jason Kilar: You Should Go Back to Amazon and Compete Against Netflix
Not that Hulu's CEO Jason Kilar has asked for or needs my career advice, but in light of his controversial "speaking truth to power" blog post on the future of TV, which has wags all over the industry saying his tenure at Hulu is all but over, I'll offer it up anyway: he should go back to Amazon (where he was prior to Hulu) and run their soon-to-be-launched video subscription business that will compete directly against Netflix.
Categories: Aggregators, People
Topics: Amazon, Hulu, Jason Kilar, Netflix
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What's Up With Verizon Wireless Throttling Its Heaviest Users?
Verizon's well-orchestrated buzz-building campaign for its iPhone launch yesterday hit a speed bump as stories began to circulate that even though it was promoting an unlimited data plan as a differentiator, it would actually
throttle its heaviest users. Verizon's official policy is that "if you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high-quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand."
Topics: iPhone, Verizon Wireless
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Mixing It Up With Mark Cuban At MIT
Last night's panel at MIT with Mark Cuban, boxee CEO/founder Avner Ronen and Akamai CEO Paul Sagan and yours truly, moderated by Prism's Woody Benson, was a freewheeling affair, with lots of controversy and plenty of humor. The topic was "IPTV: The Scrum for the Last Six Feet" and I think we covered all the relevant bases related to devices, over-the-top, content creation, sports and even what TV shows our kids are allowed to watch. For those wondering what compelled Mark to make the trek all the way to MIT, note the Mavs take on the Celtics at the Garden tonight. Next week I'll make the video available, and also highlight some of the fundamentally different ways Mark and I see the TV landscape unfolding.
Categories: Events
Topics: Mark Cuban, MIT Enterprise Forum
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Merrill Lynch Hits the Mark With In-Banner Video Financial Webcast
On the NYTimes.com home page yesterday I was intrigued by a rich media ad (see below) in the right column that expanded to play a video of a roundtable discussion moderated by Merrill executive Sallie Krawcheck. The ad epitomizes how online video lets brands go beyond the traditional 30-second TV spot to deeply engage their target audiences. Everything about the ad is well executed: high-quality video that can be viewed in full screen mode, professional-looking though low-key set design, chapter headings and durations that can be jumped to, links to Facebook, Twitter, etc. to share and placement on a well-trafficked, upscale-leaning site.
Categories: Advertising
Topics: Merrill Lynch
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Comcast's iPad Streaming is a Milestone for Pay-TV
This week Comcast began streaming certain shows to their Xfinity TV iPad app. I've watched a few shows already and played around a bit. My reaction is mostly positive; the app is fast (though there's a slight blank screen delay before playback begins) and browsing is straightforward. The biggest issue, as others have noted this week, is minimal content selection. True, when compared to Netflix, for example, Xfinity TV still looks thin, despite the 3,000+ hours Comcast says is there.
Categories: Cable TV Operators, Devices
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