Blog articles from 02/2010

Parks Associates is supporting T he Burrill Consumer Digital Health Meeting to be held March 22-23rd in Burlingame, CA. Burrill & Company, in association with the University of Illinois, Mayo Clinic, and Pfizer, is for the first time holding The Burrill Consumer Digital Health Meeting to help prepare the life sciences community for this new era. Learn how PDAs and smartphones will become personal healthcare assistants capable of receiving vital signs and even body fluid samples...

After bailing on online video in late 2007, Wal-Mart is back in the game with the announced acquisition of VUDU . With Best Buy working with Roxio CinemaNow , I can see Wal-Mart taking VUDU and developing perhaps their own branded connected CE products.

Amidst the talk and challenges of a merger between France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom wireless operations in the U.K. comes the news of a possible tie up between Telecom Italia and Telefonica . Setting aside the political implications, this recent news seems to be another step in the courtship between the two behemoths. Telefonica recently completed the acquisition of HanseNet in Germany. Prior to the acquisition, HanseNet was a part of Telecom Italia's operations in Germany. It will...

While the Mobile World Congress was abuzz with smartphones, operating systems, and apps, I was following announcements related more to enhancing mobile support applications. Given the interest in this space expressed to me during some CES meetings, mobile support is an area that we are adding to our digital home tech support coverage. I would classify the mobile support offerings into three categories: * Mobile security: These features can include "safe browsing" and...

Parks Associates is supporting the 2010 Billboard Music & Money Symposium on March 4th in New York. This one-day event brings together the best minds from the music, legal, financial and Wall Street communities for an in-depth examination of the financial realities with which the music industry is contending.

We're really seeing some interesting activity in Central and Eastern Europe as it relates to online video. Onenet.pl has chosen ExtendMedia to power its online video service. Debuting today, OnetVOD is a public, online service offering free, ad supported and pay-to-view movies, TV series and programs to all Polish internet users. With a broad array of content and several payment choices for consumers, OnetVOD provides film and television entertainment directly to the consumer taking...

Comcast is working with Mozy to offer its broadband customers an online backup service. I guess they're really working to encourage their customers to take the $4.99 per month 50 GB or $9.99 for the 200 GB storage, because 2 GB for free seems pretty chintzy. I think I could safely backup my digital photos for one year with that amount. I guess I'd have to select my best year.

I firmly believe once household-level addressability is available on a meaningful scale, advertisers and media agencies will quickly shift traditional broadcast and cable TV media budgets to the advanced advertising solution. This opinion comes from both a research and practical perspective (based on my current work and previous experience as a media planner/buyer). And, yes, I remain bullish in spite of the technical and planning/buying challenges…but that’s a whole other...