Courtesy of Richard Greenfield (who left Fulcrum Partners today in the wake of a merger but is nonetheless analyzing away), this ThinkSecret piece that contends “Apple is planning to unveil a robust new content distribution system in January at Macworld Expo alongside its revamped media-savvy Mac mini.”
Apparently in an effort to dodge the wrath of media companies, Apple’s new system will distribute audio and video files only to users’ iDiscs and not their hard drives. The system will also likely support downloading to iPods, but again, not hard drives. Moreover, as has been reported, Apple will also roll out a new series of deals with content providers beyond the Disney deal it announced last month.
Two days ago ThinkSecret reported that Apple’s Mac mini is being overhauled as a “digital hub centerpiece.” The new Mac mini will come equipped with a built-in iPod dock.
A lot of details are missing from ThinkSecret’s purported scoop, but there’s enough meat there to say “wow.” Not that Apple’s new content distribution efforts will shake up the entertainment business, but that Apple is envisioning a whole new world where traditional content distributors aren’t even needed and it extends beyond the iPod.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 5:37 PM | Print | Comments (0)According to this Dow Jones piece, the European Competitive Telecommunications Association has just come out with a study saying that regulators are failing to inject competition in Europe by favoring former state-owned phone companies. Germany and Greece come in for the worst assessment while the UK rates best in terms of spurring competition.
While this particular study doesn’t seem to be posted yet on the ECTA’s website, another interesting study conducted on broadband penetration across the continent is on the site. I highly recommend this analysis if for nothing else but a really cool spreadsheet containing lots of key metrics on telecommunications, Internet service and broadband, country-by-country.
Not surprisingly, the countries that top the broadband penetration list (Netherlands, Denmark and Finland) have the most competitive telecom markets while the countries that have the lowest broadband penetration rates (Greece, Ireland and Germany) have the least competitive markets.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:46 AM | Print | Comments (0)
With circulation on a nosedive and uncertain revenue growth ahead, traditional newspapers are embracing all kinds of new gambits in a bid for survival. The web is the promising growth terrritory for newspapers and interesting Internet experiments are cropping up on newspaper sites everywhere.
Tidewater-area newspaper The Virginian Pilot just launched a video website called HamptonRoads.tv. In addition to local and national news video pieces, the site also features video of local entertainment, news, sports, traffic, local life, music, movie previews and more produced by local residents. (Makes you wonder why newspapers are so hot to get rid of the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership restrictions — they should just start web-based local TV channels.)
Courtesy of Search Engine Watch, The Times of London is pushing its own Web 2.0 envelope by incorporating innovative search engine Blinkx into its site. Using Blinkx, Times’ readers can set up folders that scan the web for video, audio, text, blog and other kinds of files. The paper is encouraging its readers to download Blinkx’s “smart” search toolbar that allows them to set up automatic searching for files.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:03 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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