Blog articles from 11/2008

We now have incredibly fresh data on consumer purchase intentions between now and January 1, 2009. We put a survey into the field late last week titled Digital Media Evolution , and a significant focus is on consumer electronics purchases made this year and those planned for the rest of 2008. I've organized the data under some major themes. What Will Consumer Electronics Purchases Look Like this Year? About half of consumers surveyed (49%) indicate that they will purchase...

While Netflix has been busy making different consumer electronics partner announcements, Blockbuster has been silent for a long time. Finally, it was announced today that 2Wire is the CE partner for Blockbuster's Internet movie services. The 2Wire MediaPoint™ digital media player is free if one prepays for 25 BLOCKBUSTER ONDEMAND movies at $99. In its release , 2Wire touted the Media Player's connections (Wi-Fi and Ethernet) and support for HD content. The Dallas Morning News did a...

Two articles in today’s issue of the Wall Street Journal examined the eldercare market from two different angles. One article highlighted recent budget woes at more than 15 states in the U.S., which resulted in funding cut for home and community care services. The fragile and the disabled are hit particularly hard as states like Alabama, Massachusetts, and Alabama started to scale back various Medicaid Waiver programs usually targeting this vulnerable population. These beneficiaries...

Wow. Looks like Sonic is really going to ramp up its Qflix download-to-burn offering with the acquisition of CinemaNow . It's another fire sale ($3 million) in the Internet video space. However, I think there's a lot of upside for Sonic, not only in the download-to-burn space, but also as CinemaNow is working more closely with CE vendors and service providers to offer its content as part of a value-add broadband VoD offering.

We told you back in July that more people are enjoying listening to their music collections at their TVs. Looks like Sony is taking this to the next level, as they have integrated Slacker content with their BRAVIA Internet Video Link TVs. Slacker offers CD-quality music across many different genres, allowing users to personalize their listening experience.

Sony has yanked its titles from being played on the Xbox via Netflix. No surprise there, since Sony is trying to get its own PlayStation NETWORK running in direct competition to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

I am in New York this week spending time at The Future of Television East event, which was held Tuesday and Wednesday. It was another interesting conference, with a mixture of media executives and the "old guard" of television plus the companies that are now making noise in the online video space (Hulu, blip.tv, Break.com, etc.). There are definitely some differing opinions about what online and mobile video means to the broadcasters. Representatives from NBC-U, CBS, and...

I saw at least one order-the-pizza-from-the-TV demonstration at last week's TelcoTV conference, so I thought it was interesting that the theory has now become a reality, at least with TiVo and Domino's Pizza. The companies announced today that they have introduced a service to give broadband connected TiVo subscribers the ability to order pizza for delivery or pick-up, and track delivery timing.