The big, big deal of today is Google’s pact with News Corp.-owned BSkyB under which Google will license its user-generated video content (including YouTube), email, search and targeted ad tools to BSkyB’s Sky Broadband customers. BSkyB entered the terrestrial broadband business last year when it purchased EasyNet’s high-speed business and launched a series of broadband packages, the lowest level of which (still 2 Mbps download) is available at no charge to its Sky TV DBS customers.
This deal is Google’s first big agreement that leverages, at least in part, the company’s new YouTube division. But that’s not the interesting aspect of the alliance.
The pact between BSkyB and Google calls for Google to reach into BSkyB’s TV-only business, with the search giant powering the delivery of contextual TV ads delivered to Sky TV customers, which will be stored on and delivered from the set-top boxes of the TV viewers. No financial details were released but Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt is quoted as saying the deal is the company’s “most lucrative” yet…”if it works.”
That’s a big if, because cable and interactive TV engineers have long toiled to solve the technical challenges of delivering targeted, contextual video content to individual customers. It helps that SkyTV isn’t saddled with the costs of swapping out or upgrading technology resident in multiple local hubs, which is characteristic of the cable industry’s typical architecture. The expense in upgrading multiple headends or hubs is a disincentive for cable operators to toy around with new ideas like this. BSkyB, on the other hand, merely has to worry about one technical upgrade via its satellite-based platform and the job is done.
In any event, Google said it chose to do this deal with BSkyB because Britain is ahead in terms of bandwidth, which gives Google a lot of latitude to play around.
Mr Schmidt said Google had chosen the UK as a “test bed” because of fast broadband speeds and high broadband penetration. “Britain is ahead. They have so much bandwidth it changes the definition of how people use Google.”
I don’t believe that Britain is much ahead of the U.S., or any other country for that matter, when it comes to broadband speeds. In fact, according to ITU data released last summer, the U.K. doesn’t even rank among the top ten nations in terms of speed or price per megabit.
BSkyB’s terrestrial broadband service is definitely zippy. For about 10 GBP (or around $19.63) per month, SkyTV’s customers can purchase broadband that delivers up to 16 Mbps (download) service.
But it’s more likely that Google had a tough time cutting a deal with a U.S. cable operator (and forget U.S. DBS providers — one of which, DirecTV, is in the midst of a high-profile ownership change that, coincidentally enough, involves News Corp). Not only do cable systems, at least any decent-sized one, pose greater technical problems, but U.S. operators are extremely reluctant to allow powerful companies to mess around under their hoods.
Cable companies are notorious for wanting to control their technology suppliers, and Google is a company that any operator would have a hard time controlling. (Just ask Microsoft, which has been slogging away for nearly ten years and has barely made a dent in the cable business.)
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 12:27 PM | Print | Comments (0)
LightReading’s Phil Harvey, with a giant assist from research associate Raymond McConville, has produced what he calls “Web Video Cheat Sheet,” a comprehensive guide to 61 (!) sites that support video sharing on the web.
Although the cheat sheet doesn’t really offer reviews, Harvey points out that Fark.com, which hand-picks the user-generated videos submitted, is “simply the coolest user-generated (yet edited) site around” and is “the Internet equivalent of ‘must see’ TV.”
Fark.com relies heavily on YouTube videos, but does pick from other sources, such as CNN, local broadcast stations, and MetaCafe and so forth, and that’s part of its charm — the videos have been hand-picked so that viewers don’t have to sit through promising-sounding but ultimately lame videos, which happens so often on YouTube. The best thing about Fark.com is that it produces daily video lists that reflect recently posted videos or timely ones.
Today Fark has a very poignant link — CNET’s video look-back on James Kim’s work. Take a look.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:28 AM | Print | Comments (0)
Apple thinks it’s got a good thing with its FairPlay DRM — if a record company wants to sell music via the company’s popular iTunes store, it has to agree that the music will be encrypted with the company’s security technology. The upshot for customers is a whole host of restrictions on what theycan do with the music, including limitations that make the music playable only on iPods, blocks on remixing and curbs on how many PCs can play the purchased songs.
Other online music stores use DRM technologies too, but Apple has the lion’s share of the market is a frequent target for criticism from consumer groups, foreign governments and the record companies themselves, although the music industry cares more about Apple’s hardball negotiation tactics than it does about Apple’s DRM.
That’s why it’s interesting that some major record labels are releasing music in unprotected MP3 format. Britain’s EMI Music, for example, has released via Yahoo! songs from top artists Norah Jones and Relient K in the unrestricted format, which means that the music can be played on Apple’s iPod (which captures well over 80% of the portable music player market) without going through iTunes first.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment also tested the sale of selected pop songs in MP3 format this past summer. So far these are just experiments to see what happens if songs are released in unprotected formats, but Apple is bound to be nervous. What happens if the record companies find out they don’t lose any money by setting music free (once it has been purchased, of course, at prices dictated by the record companies and not iTunes)? iTunes, and other online music retailers, could lose their clout — and ability to demand concessions.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:56 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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