Study Says No Future for Video iTunes 189
eldavojohn writes "Reuters is running a story on a study that claims "Online video sites that sell shows and movies such as Apple Inc.'s iTunes will likely peak this year as more programming is made available on free outlets supported by advertising." Many channels have wised up to offering their content hosted from their own sites for free — with commercials — to cut out iTunes as the middle man. End result? Predictions that services like iTunes-Video have no future."
No future for DVDs (Score:4, Insightful)
weak science (Score:5, Interesting)
In these times, all the above listed factors change every decade. Not only do we know very little about what world our children will face, we know very little about what our own values, needs, and means will be in the next ten years. Because of this rapid pace of change, by the time any sort of economic model has enough data upon which to base predictions, all the data no longer apply.
Therefore, as far as I am concerned, all such analysis are little more than crystal-ball review.
The risk-takers are the ones who shape our world from one decade to the next, and the unknowns are just too high to say with confidence which risks are worth taking. There are no safe investments, but the betting window never closes.
totally off (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:totally off (Score:5, Insightful)
With Apple, I open iTunes, search, buy what I want, and play it.
Of course, I really do wish that Apple would port the application and service to Linux. I've actually got a Mac, a Linux box, and a Windows machine (and several others scattered about) at home, and I'd like to be able to access my media from whichever I'm using at the time.
Re:No future for DVDs (Score:5, Insightful)
Thomas, Caillou, Disney movies, over & over & over again.
Can't get the songs out of my head....
Re:No future for DVDs (Score:4, Funny)
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Oh well, daughter (6 yr old) got up in the middle of the night and caught us watching Holy Grail. She totally got into it and has been going around doing the 'sharp pointy teeth' bit. Cool!
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Serwiously, once you hear a song about a dog going tinkle, wee wee, and pee pee, it never leaves you.
Also helps to teach that a tornado goes round, round, round picking things off the ground and a desert is land made of sand.
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Wonder Pets has catchier tunes that never leave you and a cute animation style.
http://www.nickjr.com/parenting/parents_tv/index.
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Re:There is no future for ANY physical media (Score:4, Interesting)
TV is dying because Cable is so damned expensive if I want anything more than the bare minimum. It is especially expensive for me because I don't want to use them for internet and phone. They've pushed to far with the bundling. To get your money's worth, you need to go all or nothing. So I chose nothing.
I can take out/skip the commercials. That is no problem anymore. A TiVo or similar woudl actually be more convenient than downloading. It is just so much cheaper to just manually download the 5 or so weekly shows that we watch, Netflix the movies (ondemand had a terrible selection last time I checked), and get the HD PBS over the air.
Of course, when I say "download," I mean bittorrent. So I guess I'm cheating a little bit.
-matthew
I don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Funny)
Nice try Gates!
It worked for radio & music too (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:It worked for radio & music too (Score:5, Informative)
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HD content though can only be done with HD, and therefore is worse than regular broadcasts
Re:It worked for radio & music too (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, it was before the web.
In ten years, my home internet connection became five hundred times fatter. If we disconsider clever compression techniques that could be invented in the meantime, we can imagine that a 10-fold increase would be required for HD movies to be feasible.
Just seeing how fast broadband was adopted here in Brazil (first at 256Kbps and these days in the Mbps-range) accompanied by a sharp drop in prices, I can't imagine not having a link fat enough for HD content delivery in 5 years.
People tend to forget that whoever offers video subsidized by commercials will do whatever they can to prevent you from skipping them.
I think that the videos you will be able to purchase on iTunes will still cater to the normal Apple audience: those who can pay a little more for a whole lot more convenience.
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Although for me, the economics were slightly different, this is essentially why I started buying TV on iTunes.
I was looking at a $40/mo cable bill, figuring that for $40/mo on iTunes, I could buy 20 hours of television. Not exactly two hours a day, I don't have that much time for TV anyway. However, here are the real kickers -- first, for your money, you're getting replay value from your television. You pay the
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Relatively, it is a much better deal to get the DRM-infected file... and in regard to fair-use, the "analog hole" ensures that the DRM-infected file is no worse than the SDTV broadcast when piped into a VCR -- not to mention other, higher-quality ripping methods available for the digital fi
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Although, only the BBC channels are advert-free. And you have to pay for the BBC channels, even if you only want the non-BBC channels. (They could have fixed this by broadcasting BBC programmes scrambled and requiring a viewing card; the transition to digital television would have been the perfect opportunity to introduce this. I am currently awaiting a response from my MP as to why this was not done.)
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But would you actually want to? Unless you like endless big brother (which apparently is restarting soon, god dammit!), ITV Play and the crap they have on the commercial channels, the current system is optimal imho. Sure, some claim they watch Sky TV or cable exclusively for a while, but sooner or later everyone realises that brain cells need companions and so end up switching back to watching mainly terrestrial channels.
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I hope you have several good books and a grain of salt handy, since I'm sure you're in for quite a wait before you get some silly justification. Why would your MP answer with the truth, which is, "That would reduce revenues to the point that
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And why wouldn't you want to do that, when you're paying for a corporation with such journalistic integrity [youtube.com]?
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PS: I am not on Windows now and am only quoting the price from memory.
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The continued viability of premium cable channels despite the availability of free, advertising-supported broadcasts, suggests that there are more than a handful of people willing to pay money to watch video without advertising even where free, advertising supported alternatives exist.
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Really, the only way to get DRM-free digital video (on TV; when it comes to the internet, there's plenty more sources) legally is via OTA content with a digital antenna.
Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, this doesn't make any sense. And can television stations really say that they make more money per viewer with commercials than they do with iTunes downloads? As far as I see, the episodes on NBC.com are carrots intended to get viewers hooked on the shows. The quality is intentionally limited so as to convince new viewers to tune in on television or iTunes.
"No Future" (Score:4, Interesting)
Imagine a future, though, where wireless broadband is cheap and ubiquitous. Subscription websites generally do poorly and people are willing to sit through advertising in order to get something they want for free. If I can tab to another web site during commercials, I probably don't care that things are delayed for a couple minutes.
Eventually, the issue will be about time. Some people's time is valuable enough that they'll purchase the DVD or download the series. For the masses, the commercial approach is fine for them. Personally, I think it's good to have choices.
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How will they know I'm not watching the commercials?
Because they aren't selling any products?
We're talking long term. Eventually they will notice that their business model is not working, so they will change their model.
If a product is advertised on different tv stations, magazines, hoardings, radio etc, how will they be able to determine which one is more effective?
Ummm, people actually work very hard on this problem. Are you suggesting that in this multibillion dollar field, no one has a clue what works and what doesnt?
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They'd sell no products at all, despite formats such as radio, magazines, cinema commercials etc? Really?
Not all things are advertised everywhere. The point is, if TV ads are not making them money, those paying for it will figure this out. If nothing else, the executives will notice that their friends and family don't watch commercials, and say "gee, lets do a test and drop our advertising in one region while keeping it in another, and see how the sales go".
Your suggestion, that the whole TV advertising economy can be based on an assumption that people are actually watching commercials, when they really ar
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You've suggested that they'll `change their model`. To what, exactly?
My suggestion above was that, the more people find ways to skip commercials, the more they will start doing things like superimposing the commercials on the actual show, which they are actually already doing by putting obnoxious ads on the bottom of the screen during the show.
Other than that, I was disputing the notion of someone above ( http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=234667&cid=191 14503 [slashdot.org] ) that there was some sort of perfect world where tv was financially supported by ads, but less and less peo
Plus... (Score:2)
Frankly what I hope to have some day is
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Seriously, this doesn't make any sense. Why pay for something when you can get it for free with MUCH better quality? TV is not like music. The Network content is available freely over the air. Why pay for something that is already free?
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Yes, thank you. That was completely my typo. And I fully agree. Apple has upgraded the video quality once already. As the average bandwidth improves, I see no reason why they wouldn't offer 720p in the future. It's just that right now there is no serious competition in that area. (The XBOx 360 stuff is still getting the kinks worked out.) So for now, at least, Apple is sitting pretty.
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Shows with commercials are not "free" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shows with commercials are not "free" (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about anyone else, but I actually like seeing occasional advertisements. Especially things like movie trailers and new show promotions. My problem is that I don't like being forced to watch them repetitively. iTunes gives you the best of both worlds in that respect, and in a way that is unlikely to offend the die-hard anti-commericalists. (Dare I say it? Anti-commercial Nazis?)
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I am very pleased with the location and duration of advertising on, say, iTunes downloads for The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. Very limited and at the end.
I don't have cable, so iTunes is the only legit channel I have for some shows. Other than the DRM garbage, and the erratic timing with which the videos are released after airing, I am generally pleased with the arrangement.
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Lighten up a little. Being so serious is going to take years off your life.
And in case you're wondering, I'm one of those people who "pay for shows without commercials". I have no cable service and rely on iTunes, DVDs, and websites like NBC.com. My reference (which was a joke anyway) was not aimed at your average, "I'm tired of sitting through commercials" consumer, but rather the extremists who think all commercial
This could go either way (Score:5, Insightful)
However, IF you can watch the same thing for free, with similar quality, only the irritant of commercials remain. However, this is a big irritant and I think most people would skip them if possible. As long as people are able to skip the commercials somehow, then the free option will prevail, however, the providers will never stand for this.
Buying content will allow people to play said content on portable devices. Commercials fed services will have to be streaming to keep the user from skipping commercials. So, different users will want different kinds of content.
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ughh yeah, mmm-kay (Score:5, Insightful)
What the author should have said is that iTunes perhaps has yet to find the video market content that targets it's user base. Just because content providers are finding that they get more benefit by not having a middle man for distribution does not mean there is no room in the market place for what iTMS has to offer... or any other content distributor, can you say YouTube or others like it?
While CBS, NBC, BBC et al can find profit in distributing their own content, it is aggregaters that will create 'channels' that users will be willing to subscribe to. Just like broadcasting companies of years gone by, it will be aggregation channels that people end up watching.
Already there are too many web sites with video content and too much content for the average user to keep up with. In the end, due mostly to operator overload, users will end up just watching their 'favorite' channels of video content on the Internet. Just like there are different Internet radio stations because of taste and ease of use, video channels will emerge as the 'new tv' networks. People are often just like sheep wanting someone else to tell them what to watch. This societal effect will make its mark on Internet video content too.
The good news in this story? Content creators are seeing that they don't need a distribution company for the Internet. Perhaps musicians will see this too and wriggle out of their contracts to start putting more music content out there without the RIAA tax.
Movies to go please... (Score:3, Interesting)
Spread the word (Score:2)
Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
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These devices all come with 16:9 screens these days as well. My Cowon plays Divx/Xvid at resolutions u
Short positions? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Headlines do move stocks, but not little one-shot things like this. The market dismisses study articles like this one. There may be some investor who says, "Some research analyst says it's gonna tank? Get me outta that!" but it's less influential than, say, an upgra
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Paying extra for uninterrupted viewing (Score:4, Insightful)
In my little world, this guy is off target.
People pay to get their time & choice back.
Why not let a friend record them for you? (Score:2, Interesting)
It works great, just like asking your neighbor to tape your favorite shows when you go on vacation.
Oh...the bad part is, the media companies can't make any money off of it.
I used to hang out with USENET... (Score:2)
who will advertise? (Score:3, Funny)
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Disney buys advertising ("Own The Little Hans Christian Andersen Rip-Off on DVD Today!") but they also sell advertising on their own channels. Same goes for Time-Warner, NBC, Fox and more or less any television station the world over.
And when another TV network, either in the US or elsewhere, shows a Disney cartoon or a Fox show, Disney/Fox/Insert Company Here gets paid.
You can be reasonably certain they'll also be selling ads. What,
One stop shopping (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure they've taken every aspect into account. While 'free' sounds good, I'm pretty sure people don't want to hunt all around different sites, all with different viewing/codec requirements, all with different site logins and other logisitcal hoops, just to find something they might want to watch.
On the contrary, I believe sites that will survive which can collect the most shows/movies from all the content providers in one place, all with short previews, all encoded reliabily the same. While the 'Net allows for wild west style secluded towns for each studio, it doesn't have staying power. People tend to prefer a centralized distributor they can count on.
iTune's biggest issue IMHO is that they need more studios to supply content in order to make them a one-stop shop. The studios need to get past this walled garden idea.
How many times do we have to see this? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Internet has not replaced TV. TV did not replace radio or the movies. Movies and radio did not replace stage shows. Smartphones have not replaced PDAs. Etc etc etc. Can't ONE FUCKING JOURNALIST accept the fact that some things will just stay around?!? Sheesh.
Now, on to the actual premise of TFA: I love that ABC and others are making their content available online. HOWEVER, I do NOT like that I've got to fire up a browser and watch shows streaming. I *want* to be able to download shows and watch them with no de[[[buffering]]]lays, and watch them over and over, and skip around with no delay, and be able to watch it some day in the future when ABC quits hosting the file, etc etc etc. I don't like buying video from iTunes--the fact that it can NEVER be watched without a) a computer, b) an AppleTV, or c) an iPod pretty much kills it for me--but I like watching shows in a browser on my so-so Internet connection even less.
Long story short: this will NOT be the end of iTunes. Hint to fucktard "journalist"/"researcher" #42571: TiVos and videotapes ALSO render iTunes obsolete--but it's still around. Get a fucking clue. Douchebag.
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On planet Earth, these things did happen for the most part. TV turned radio into a niche product for the car and the clock radio where it had been the dominant mass medium and home entertainment. The movies did replace stage shows, literally - vaudeville houses became movie theatres practically en masse; the corpse of theatre as mass popular entertainment (Broadway) is just a tourist attr
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Whoa (Score:2)
Wised up - just like that, eh?.
Yesterday they couldn't unwrap a corndog and now they've figured it all out and they've got iTunes on the run.
The world....is such a funny place....isn't it...?
I mean, I'm always keen to see things work out for others. And I love the serendipitous nature of this whirlwind we call 'now'. But who among us would have not been taken by surprise to see the wor
Way to ignore history (Score:2, Interesting)
Joost.. (Score:2)
who sponsored this study? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. I really don't watch too much other than movies and a couple of TV shows that are available on iTunes. I definitely never watched anything when it was actually being broadcast -- usually several days later.
2. The total monthly cost of these things is more than my motorcycle payment.
3. I could get a Netflix subscription, buy the entire seasons of the shows on iTunes, give up nothing, and save a few hundred bucks a year.
So I cancelled the satellite, unplugged the TiVo, and haven't really missed them since (except when my girlfriend is over and wants to watch something; all that's hooked up to the TV now is a DVD player and the XBOX 360.)
I call shenanigans on this study.
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Actually, now that I come to think of it, maybe we could get by with the
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I'm not going to lie and say something like "I just watch a few hours a week, and only education shows on PBS". I probably don't watch the average of 4 hours a day of TV that most Americans do, but I watch my fair share. In my humble opinion TV is producing some of the best content right now (I'd rather watch a night of Lost or 6 Feet Under DVDs than many movies).
What worked great for me is no cable/
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I have found it is better to have the girlfriend move in before the wife. Having the wife move in AFTER the girlfriend can cause all sorts of female rivalry. But I do have to give you kudos on pulling it off!
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No, You can't.
Also, how easy would downloading from iTunes and burning the content to DVD and then sticking it in a CD wallet with an appropriate Sharpie labeled identification? Does Digital Rights Management step in to prevent this, or would I need software that can circumvent
ABC's got it right (Score:3, Insightful)
The End of Appointment TV (Score:4, Insightful)
Appointment TV is dead; the networks and broadcasters need to wake up to the fact that everyone showing up in front of their televisions at a set time to watch Idol is becoming as arcane and antiquated as the family life portrayed in 1950's family sitcoms. They need to realize that in order to capture every eyeball, they'll have to distribute it on cable, on the download sites and services for products like AppleTV, on their own web sites, on cellular networks and every other place where they can find eyeballs. To ignore this will simply result in less dollars for them because they are not making their shows available to the largest number of people.
Play With Ourselves (Score:2)
Burn (Score:2)
Nope. For a few reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
- Convenience. I don't want to hunt around to find the content I'm looking for, deal with different codecs and quality issues, and try to get it working on my Mac (my attempts thus far to view things like the NCAA basketball tournament games, or portions of The Masters, have been wildly unsuccessful.)
- Viewing Experience. Nobody wants to watch these on their computer. Apple already has the AppleTV, or even Mac Mini as good settop box options.
- Familiarity. The existing iTMS user base is huge, we already have accounts there and are exposed to the video choices, making it easy to take the leap into video.
- Integration. There is value in having the option to view the content on my laptop, iPod, as well as my TV -- without jumping through hoops and transcoding. This will be even more important as the next generation of iPods, with iPhone interface and widescreens, become available. having the video on a portable device becomes even more useful / usable.
I'm not saying iTMS is the pinnacle of multimedia.. but it's the best thing going right now. I am hoping that free/legal options become more common in the future. But, I'm thinking something along the lines of MythTV, except easy to set up and use. Record HDTV programs for free with an antenna, convert them to a good format for use on a variety of devices, and integrate with a nice settop box for TV playback. MythTV can do this today, if you're willing to spend the time/effort and acquire the knowledge necessary. This is definitely an area ripe for a startup.. but it needs to be one that is willing to live without exploiting all the lock-ins that everyone else attempts with this sort of thing.
Depends on the quality (Score:2)
Besides, iTunes is not the big competitor, the torrent/ftp/etc sites are the big competitors, they have the nuts.
Can I watch that other stuff on my iPod? (Score:2)
When I get a video in iTunes, it's so that I can download it onto my video iPod, to watch it on the bus during my commute, or while waiting for my food at a restaurant, et cetera, et cetera.
I'll give you an example: Heroes. The web site lets you watch episodes for free. I've still bought some episodes via iTunes. Why? The web site used streaming video
I can see both sides of the coin (Score:3, Interesting)
I love watching LOST, but I am awful about actually sitting down and watching it when it is on TV. I always miss it.
Back during Season 2, I was still catching up. I really wanted to watch the episodes that I missed. I had missed a lot of them. So, I figured $2 is worth the price of an episode. I went to iTunes, and I bought about 12 episodes of Season 2 to catch up to where I needed to be. It was really cool, the quality was good, and I was pretty happy with it.
Fast forward to now.
I still miss LOST regularly, but I don't buy it from iTunes anymore. I go to www.abc.com, and I watch it online. I can watch it in full screen, and I just have to sit through a 30 second commercial a few times per episode. I consider that a free trade, considering that if I was watching it on TV, I'd have to sit through FIVE MINUTES worth of commercials several times per episode.
The only issue I have with the ABC content is that sometimes the streaming isn't quite fast enough, and the video feed can get locked up. I don't have to deal with that on iTunes. Also, you can only go back 4 episodes. So, if I missed an entire season, I couldn't get it on ABC.com. However, I would imagine that ABC has something in the works to rectify this situation.
In summary, I'd rather watch a few commercials than pay $2 for an episode if I am given the choice.
UNLESS
I want to burn the episode to DVD to watch later. THEN I want a high quality digital copy with no commercials, and I'd pay $2 for it. Unfortunately, iTunes doesn't allow you to burn video to DVD, so I can't win on that front at all. If Apple can get rid of the DRM requirement on their downloaded videos, to let you burn them to DVD, I can see a market for them. Otherwise, eventually the free content will win.
iTunes vs. cable (Score:3, Insightful)
A while ago, I compared the cost of my local cable provider to the cost of iTunes. I figured that the most comparable level of service to iTunes was the one that includes a DVR and a few of the premium channels, which I think cost about $60 per month. Then I looked up on the iTunes Store the shows my family actually watches, and calculated how much each show would cost per month (obviously, I needed to do some conversions, since most shows are sold by the season rather than by the month). I omitted all shows that are in reruns, since I decided that if I were to drop my cable service, I would be more likely get such shows on DVD (either buy them or rent them e.g. via Netflix).
Some of the shows we watch aren't offered on iTunes (including MythBusters!!!), but when I calculated how much we'd spend if all the shows we watch were offered, I found that the worst-case scenario was still less than half the cost of the comparable cable service. Furthermore, iTunes offers a variety of advantages (no commercials, and we can watch purchased shows whenever we want) that no cable service provides and can't easily be translated to a dollar value.
My opinion, therefore, is that video through iTunes and similar services, while not as well-developed as video through cable or satellite, has the potential to be a significant competitor to traditional cable or satellite services.
So... (Score:2, Interesting)
Why do we even have to pay for television? Look at terrestrial radio: Commercials, talking, etc., but it's free. It's supported by advertising. Why isn't television the same way? Why should I have to pay $40/month for basic cable and still have to be bombarded by crap advertisements and junk I don't want to see? I understand the need to recup the initial hardware fees and such. It costs money to lay cable lines, install outlets in h
Has anyone ever carried out a study of studies... (Score:2)
Maybe true or not (Score:2)
My predictions: (Score:2)
Content producers will wonder why they can't get you to pay for the bits WITH commercials, just like how there's commercials on cable TV. Eventually it'll happen.
Content producers will want you to stream the bits so that you'll have to pay-per-view, won't be able to copy for personal use, excerpt for purposes of commentary, criticism, or parody, or share with friends, or rewind for instant replay.
People will wonder why they have to pay their cable ISP for internet
Direct mail orders? (Score:3, Insightful)
Companies could cut the middle-man and allow customers to buy from them directly, as long as they were aware of the company, and had their mail address, and were willing to fill up a mail order form and a check and send it to them.
Right...
There is a value proposition in a centralized marketplace for this content - exposure their user base, facilitate impulse buys, all sorts of nice things which include most of the reasons malls still exist.
Providing the content on their own website has a lot of advantages too - not the least that perhaps people might have a reason to go to nbc.com.
But the big difference is that they have more leverage to use against the middle-man on negotiations. "Look, it's not like you are our only choice. If we don't like the deal, we'll just take our content home and play by ourselves.".
This is less in line with "online video stores have no future", and more in line with "CEOs of online video stores may have to stop comparing the children of content-producer executives to ugly-bulldogs-after-a-car-accident".
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Your's is probably the most direct analogy thus far. Going direct is often a big hassle.
If we're to go by their thinking, then consumers will have no problem having to figure out which studio or agency owns the righ
Surprising conclusion (Score:2)
This is a very strange conclusion considering that such a market battle of this kind has happened plenty of times before and the paid services could always survive and do pretty well.
I am not sure about the radio stations time, but I think people did pay for tapes even though they could listen to their favorite music for free from the radio stations.
But in the case of TV I have definitely paid more for cable service over the usual free TV based on ads...
And well, the fact is that people tend to like qu
Forrester Research tilting at windmills... AGAIN! (Score:4, Insightful)
Part of their problem is they can't seem to see five minutes into the future at the larger strategy Apple is deploying with devices such as AppleTV. What the MIT computer science-educated, but consumer technology-ignorant analysts at Forrester seem to want is for Apple to:
a) Follow the same abysmal (read: atrociously unsexy) corporate branding strategy as everyone else... i.e. iPods should be APPLE IPODS (imagine a big flashing neon sign).
b) Focus more energy on getting consumers to accept the 1970's definition of computing (which, incidentally, is paramount to Forrester's bread and butter).
What Apple does that seems to have Forrester analysts' panties in a bunch is they focus on understanding how consumers interact with technology, and then define solutions that fit that usage. Consequently, Apple does not fit Forrester's mold. They deploy a device like AppleTV and all Forrester can see is Apple trying to compete with cable/dish. They cannot see the larger multimedia strategy at play here, of which AppleTV is only a "feeler" product. Even if AppleTV fails, its lessons are going to be harvested by Apple product people to shape the next generation. Since Steve Jobs' return, Apple seldom experiences a tragic loss in the market because they take whatever they learned and shape future products with the improvements that were needed. If AppleTV succeeds, we'll see an extrapolation of more of its features. If it doesn't, we'll see devices based off AppleTV that possess what it is that AppleTV lacks.
This difference in focal length of Apple's vision, and Forrester's vision, is also what sets Apple apart from all its competitors. They're just as myopic as Forrester... which works out perfectly since there's money to be made by restating the patently obvious. It's certainly a lot easier than having vision.
No ads is the only reason I want online video (Score:2)
The only reason I would want iTunes or other online video purchases would be for convenience--including lack of advertising.
Why would I log on to watch something I can rent, buy, or watch on TV? With rental services like netflix and blockbuster, the cost of viewing an individual movie is next to nothing, so I'd just want to choose an alternate for better convenience. Having ads shown to me is not convenient.
new service (Score:2, Interesting)
Predictions like this are simple... (Score:2)
Perhaps it's a sign of the times - I suspect not - but why can we not discuss things that actually matter, things that provide an insight into how we can "do the next good thing", as opposed to knocking down a process that has been developed, released and is widely used.
I have to agree (Score:2)
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If you plan to watch the entire season, I suggest you buy the "Season Pass," which is significantly cheaper than buying all the episodes one by one. It's your money, if iTunes offers a cheaper way and you've been spending your money badly, that is certainly not Apple's fault.
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"Let me be one of the first to say that this story is so off-base that it will likely never be referenced by anyone in the future."
I disagree.
After all, "640k ought to be enough for anybody" and "we predict a world market for, maybe, five computers" and "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." are still referenced frequently.