Monthly Archives: January 2007

iPhone for the iWin

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Given that I now will work feverishly to obtain one on launch day, they have obviously got the mix right.

iPhone front-on, and side-on

It’s equal parts widescreen iPod, PDA-computer hybrid and phone with an operating system that doesn’t suck.

My previous forays into PalmPilots with GSM jackets, Newton MessagePad 2100s with GPRS cards, and Symbian Series 60 have all been leading to this point.

As long as they don’t count Australia as Asia, which means a 2008 launch date for the masses, I can see a lot of people dropping Windows Mobile smartphones quick-smart.

Affair over. Engagement and marriage imminent.

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I’d say that PCs and TVs have been flirting, and quite possibly canoodling, for some time.

Joanne Ostrow, whose sub-editor had the great idea to use the phrase will change the way we live, posted this article two days ahead of the usual schedule. Her predictions for 2007 are real!

You’ve heard the predictions before, but this time they [consumer electronics manufacturers] really mean it.

Keyword, and buzzword, laden this potted copy-and-paste doesn’t tell digitalmediaphiles a lot they didn’t already know. Nor does it help Joe Average navigate the digital media landscape that is just outside the livingroom door.

Reverse anachronism (I don’t know the right word) steps in, predictably in a predictions piece:

The notion of how you discover programs will change, too. Channel surfing will become overwhelming with far too many choices to sample. Expect to see different navigation cues pop up to let you know what’s on, specifically of interest to you.

No.

Cues to relevance, to relationships, to currency and to community will help you navigate.

People already know what is on: they need to determine why it’s on, where it came from, what it’s like, and what exists around it or its topic.

Revenues flat due to DRM MP3s

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No, of course not.

But REUTERS, the esteemed organisation that it is, used a Billboard article by Antony Bruno to propose just this (second paragraph, even).

In 2007, the majors will get the message, and the DRM wall will begin to crumble. Why? Because they’ll no longer be able to point to a growing digital marketplace as justification that DRM works. Revenue from digital downloads and mobile content is expected to be flat or, in some cases, decline next year. If the digital market does in fact stall, alternatives to DRM will look much more attractive.

At least the article has a good look at the 1Q2007 market we’re all returning from holiday periods to face, reviewing:

  1. Amazon
  2. Limewire
  3. MySpace
  4. eMusic
  5. Yahoo! Music

By volume, I think MySpace has a chance of driving demand for liberated MP3s.

By quality, possibly David Goldberg’s deals with Sony BMG and EMI Music could influence the marketplace.

Ashwin Navin muses

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It’s a selectively-edited interview, but Ashwin Navin, co-founder of BitTorrent publicly puts forth “common sense”.

I actually don’t think that if content owner and content rights holders take an inventory of the way that people want to consume content and embrace, rather than fight it, DRM almost becomes irrelevant. If people can use content in the way they want offline and online they won’t care about DRM, because the content is consumed in a flexible use case.

Yes, absolutely: this statement means two things though.

  1. With good use-case-management, via “DRM” platforms, people won’t really see the mechanism that lets them watch what they want, how they want
  2. If the original rights-holder publishes legitimate unencumbered media, they could combat the existence of illicit unencumbered media.

And as the interviewer emits surprise at the possibility of point 2, Navin explains that

[…] There’s huge amounts of value for publishers to license a TV show over and over again. Today they can’t stomach the risk of allowing content to be published free and clear of DRM. But eventually they’ll realize that’s the way people are going to consume it anyway, so they might as well profit from it.

Media houses coming to grips with the freedom ethic of digital content will prosper.