a shot in the arm?

I can still remember
It wasn’t long ago.
Things you used to tell me,
You said I had to know.

On October 28th, 2009 the Wall Street Journal featured an article in the business section titled FCC Considers Shifting Some TV Airwaves to Broadband. In it, the author Amy Schatz, reported that “Federal regulators are considering taking back some airwaves from television broadcasters and auctioning them off to wireless companies to increase the availability of wireless broadband services.”

The proposal suggests that some of the bandwidth allocated to broadcasters may be rescinded in order to sustain the presumably rapid growth of mobile bandwidth demands.

Where does that leave the interested parties?

As a broadcaster, how would I justify the very recent investment of capital into infrastructure to deliver DTV (both HD and SD). It has cost money in an environment where the value of broadcast advertising is being seriously questioned. As a cable or satellite service provider it may mean more customers, but who’s going to pay for local content acquisition and long haul/uplink?

As a consumer, I have in some cases reluctantly acquired a new expensive TV or have been provided with a subsidized converter box in order to receive the free to air signals mandated and administered by the authorities.

So, where would the audience go? Would it migrate to broadband and pay for what used to be free-to-air? In a paid broadband environment, what would be the role of government authorities like the FCC? Would different standards apply to what used to be free-to-air and paid channels? Who would subsidize the connection costs? What does it do to the concept of the public commons?

Clearly, this would add even more confusion to the already vague business models. Many, many more questions come to mind.

Whatever happens, you can be sure that regardless of the transport layer, digital content will be delivered via IP. Even content that would be sent over the reclaimed spectrum will eventually be delivered via IP (think 4G). Seems like regardless of the decision, IP delivery of content marches inexorably onwards… A shot in the arm for IPTV?

Tell me it isn’t so… I’m listening.

the seven pillars of media

And I see things
That no one would ever glimpse
As your eyes roll back
And the real party begins
And I feel things
That I’m not supposed to feel
As I reassure myself
That I’m nothing but a jewel upon your crown

This week I discuss a new tool that I have developed in exploring mediums. It enables classification of mediums from both the perspective of consumers as well as that of the business and marketplace. I have called it the 7 pillars, because I am unashamedly trading off T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and the themes of change, challenge and sustainability contained therein.

This framework contains seven pillars which support the media business and is weighted to look at things from a consumer perspective. Why? In the end, media is about the consumer, the audiences, demographics and psychometrics to which the consumer belongs, to their purchasing power and their consequent aggregated ability to endorse or demote marketplace media preferences.

Back in April, 2009 in why target, I made reference to the fact that consumers have three things to trade with a media company:

1. Privacy (P) – by identifying their attributes, consumers add value by enabling the medium to build monetization cases by clearly measuring and demonstrating value to purchasers of advertising and sellers of content.
2. Money ($) – either directly through paid subscriptions or subsidies, or indirectly through purchasing advertised content, goods and services.
3. Time (T) – the amount of time that they spend with the medium and thus building equity in the audiences that are subsequently monetized.

Each of these are shown in the table below…

I have started mapping these attributes across clusters of similar mediums, and present TV mediums as the first in this series.

Clearly displayed is the technical dominance of and consumer potential that IPTV promises as a medium. However, being better does not count too much if you don’t have market share, and this is where the traditional players of cable, satellite and terrestrial TV shine. Note that IPTV encapsulates my thinking on both walled-garden as well as Over The Top, but in all cases, this is the ‘lounge-room’ experience.

Each of these mediums displays a footprint that broadly reflects the ongoing business model viability ‘at present’. It shows comparative capabilities and offers a quick visual to suggest potential areas of competitive improvement.

It is not perfect, but it does provide a very useful discussion tool, a common language for dialog and a real way to connect with the customer who is now driving the business.

I have analyzed all mediums in greater detail, and explained my justification for the scoring. These scores will be updated each quarter with new observations, press coverage and anecdotal information.

Change is certain, but guessing the future is still very precarious – especially in the media business. As stated by Edgar R. Fiedler “He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass.”

Nonetheless, it is a tool that hopefully you’ll find useful.

Tell me it isn’t so… I’m listening.

what’s in a name? clouds

Cloudy
My thoughts are scattered and they’re cloudy,
They have no borders, no boundaries.
They echo and they swell
From Tolstoy to Tinker Bell.
Down from Berkeley to Carmel.
Got some pictures in my pocket and a lot of time to kill.

There’s a lot of confusion over the term ‘cloud computing’. Some see it as marketing buzz, others see a new technological approach, some a business model shift.

It’s all of the above.

We have all seen the inexorable shift to the network. Before the web, there was thin-client computing, before that, dumb terminals. In fact a very notable technology company pronounced well over 25 years ago that the ‘network is the computer’. Prior to that, Ken Olson of DEC saw no need for personal computers, and Thomas Watson of IBM saw the need for perhaps only 5 computers in the world. In fact, if you combine all of these seemingly orthogonal declarations, you could conclude that with the fullness of time, there may be only a handful of computing utilities in the world, and in fact they were all correct.

There has always been a pendulum shift between centralized and decentralized management of computing resources and information. Sometimes these swings were in sync, at other times they were in opposition i.e. centralized information with decentralized processing and vice-versa.

Regardless. Everything is moving to the network. So it would seem to make sense that in order to bridge both processing and informational requirements we had to develop technologies to enable that shift in an economical manner. Economics of deployment, ownership and migration all being considered.

There is a distinction between the technology that enables ‘cloud computing’ – virtualization… of infrastructure, virtual machines and software stacks all coexisting on, and simultaneously leveraging the resources of utility computing. And, the applications which use that technology. Hence the confusion.

Talk to a techo and the discussion will be about the technology which makes this happen and detailed explanations of why their cloud is better than the competition. Talk to a business-focused person and they’ll tell you that delivering services on a network infrastructure, or as a service, has been happening for years, and this is all not that very new. Both are right. Context.

Confused? Well, just like .pdf and html clearly derived from LaTex, so clouds draw upon previous generations of computer architectural approaches. At a philosophical level there really is no difference, clouds really are just ‘water vapor’. However, when you dig into the detail, there are developments in the technology and business opportunities that may, and should, be leveraged.

Why not see if it works for you and your business? If the math works, all variables considered (including risk and other intangibles), then there is no need to be comfortably numb… if it doesn’t, then at least your math will tell you why. But please, don’t let the hype and your own personal lack of diligence prevent your exploration… and your opportunity to learn.

Tell me it isn’t so… I’m listening.