CES 2012: The content issue
January 11, 2012 Written by Giles Cottle
Content is king: the most over-used, hackneyed and clichéd phrase in this industry? Probably. The biggest truth in said industry? Absolutely.
All articles by : Giles Cottle
IP&TV 2012 round-up
March 28, 2012 Written by Giles Cottle
As always Informa’s analyst team was out in force at this year’s IP&TV World Forum – the last IP&TV World Forum, it turns out, as the show re-brands to TV Connect for 2013 and beyond. This year’s show was certainly bigger and brasher than previous years (exhibit a: the Red Bull F1 car on the upper floor) and most of the conversations we had showed companies in bullish mood about future opportunities.
Boxee puts the cat among the Pay TV pigeons
January 13, 2012 Written by Giles Cottle
Informa has long believed that the winning video platform will be the one that most conveniently blends a mix of Live TV and OTT into one easy-to-use package for consumers. Conventional logic has always been that this would either come from one of four places: a Pay TV provider, one of the big CE OEMs, Apple or Google. These players are the ones with the clout required to both secure content deals, and to pull off the significant technical integration such a play would require. But at CES, the most compelling vision of this future came from a much more unlikely source: Boxee.
Spotify embraces the land of the free..sort of
July 15, 2011 Written by Giles Cottle
Spotify has finally got its prize. News of a US launch today brings to a close a two-year affair, blighted with delays, speculation and a healthy dollop of the now infamous “ongoing negotiations with labels”.
Apple’s iCloud: First take
June 8, 2011 Written by Giles Cottle
So after literally years of hype (the period of time that has passed since we learned that Apple was building a giant data center in North Carolina) Apple has finally launched its iCloud service. Here is our first take: Early bird does not always get them worm.
Shifting trends in global internet traffic
May 31, 2011 Written by Giles Cottle
According to a recent report from Informa Telecoms & Media, internet users will upload and download 1.2 million petabytes of data per year by 2015, around seven times more than in 2010. Unsurprisingly, video will experience the most significant growth due to the phenomenal popularity of services such as BBC iPlayer and Netflix, and will account for over half of all internet traffic by 2015. But other services – notably online storage and back-up services such as Rapidshare and Dropbox – will experience considerable growth.
Spotify plays hard-ball with its free users
April 14, 2011 Written by Giles Cottle
Spotify today announced that it was to reduce the amount of music that free users of the service can stream, capping it at 10 hours per month. This should not come as a surprise. It is simply part of a “get them hooked, then make them pay” strategy Spotify began when it reduced the free service from unlimited to twenty hours listening a week.
Connected devices become “smart”, but some remain smarter than others
January 17, 2011 Written by Giles Cottle
CES gave me a great opportunity to hone in on the state of play with connected TVs and devices; one of the Informa broadband team’s key research area and, if our Intelligence Centre support requests are anything to go by, a favourite topic of our clients’, too.
BBWF Day Three: Competing with “they who shall not be named”
November 1, 2010 Written by Giles Cottle
The first day’s keynotes saw one angry punter question why no content or application providers had been invited to the Broadband World Forum. Not an entirely fair accusation, given that a Google Exec was scheduled to speak (although Paris’ transport strikes eventually put paid to his appearance).
Google plan highlights gap between web and TV
May 24, 2010 Written by Giles Cottle
Google’s plans for its Smart TV product are finally out of the box. Some of the things it announced for truly lived up to the considerable pre-launch hype, and it was certainly the shot in the arm for TV that it promised to be. The ability to seamlessly search for, flick between and personalise web and TV content is something that consumers have been crying out for years, and something the pay TV industry has largely failed to deliver.
Loading ...
