Telcos Getting Crazy For IPTV

I sound like a curmudgeon when I say this, but I can remember when the phone company and the cable company were two different things. Today, the distinctions aren't there anymore. The phone company is selling TV, the TV company is selling phone, and everyone's selling high-speed Internet. Now the next big thing, IPTV is picking up steam.

The Bridge: The Telcos Tilt to IPTV
All Internet Protocol All the Time Gains Favor Among Telco Triple Players

Looking at just the U.S. pay-TV market, the IP-supported U-verse TV service from AT&T is rapidly approaching the 400,000-customer mark and is aiming for 1 million customers by the end of the year. Small telcos are also embracing IPTV, using the technology as an affordable yet scalable solution that gets them into the video business.
But the United States is hardly alone in utilizing IPTV. There are nearly 10 million IPTV subscribers around the world, states one research firm. That number could grow to the tens of millions during the coming years.

Bring it on!

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Analyst sour on Facebook 3rd Party Applications

The Bridge: Facebook's Lengthy Tail of Woe

Eighty four or 1.7 percent of all Facebook applications receive 87 percent of all usage. Now that's one, long, long tail ... and it sure makes you think twice about the economics of developing applications for the popular website.These stats come from Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Research who has just released results from an in-depth study of Facebook. We've shown part of that depressingly long tail here ... and you can read more about it at http://radar.oreilly.com.

I think that's kind of a backward way of looking at it. As Han Solo put it, "Never tell me the odds." Discouraging developers from aiming for the bleachers by pointing out all the strikes is no way to try and create software that hits a home run. The reason why the vast majority of applications for Facebook don't get used is that they're dumb, pointless, and add neither utility nor value.

...

Okay, maybe I'd better back up a little. Looking at some of the applications I get invited to join on Facebook, such as Zombies, Werewolves, Vampires, Virtual Flowers, and Movie/TV Trivia, maybe the reason why the vast majority of applications for Facebook don't get used is that they aren't dumb enough, pointless enough, and aren't lacking enough utility, and only provide nominal entertainment value, even for the easily amused?

Obviously, there's a market for stupid gimmicks on Facebook, but the question that needs to be asked is how stupid is stupid enough?

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Do Americans fear having their televisions shut off?

Apparently not. Despite concerns amongst government and industry leaders, the few Americans who have not bought into HDTV don't seem concerned about having their analog signals switched off.

The Bridge: A Big Panic ... Or A Big Yawn?

Committee, said last week that the nation's eventual transition to digital TV could be a video revolution, or "we may find ourselves with a digital disaster."Could it really be that challenging for the estimated 111 million TV households (a figure that includes cable, DBS, telco video and over-the-air viewers) out there?As of Nov. 1, there will be 474 days left for the nation’s broadcasters to turn off analog television signals and convert to digital. The shift, set to take place Feb. 17, 2009, will have profound implications not only for local TV stations and national broadcast networks. It will impact cable, satellite TV, telco video platforms, programmers and electronics retailers.

Granted in the aftermath of a major event, there will always be a vocal group who will cry "Why didn't anyone tell us about this?" But looking at the retail performance of HDTV's, it's hard to believe that Feb 17* will be an End Of The World As We Know It scenario for all but the most clueless of consumers.

Then again, maybe the disenfranchised TV owners will riot and loot in the streets? Maybe in years hence the U.S. will have it's own broadcast television-version of Bastille Day to commemorate the uprising of poor, downtrodden people who had their analog broadcasts of Judge Judy taken from them.

*which is a Sunday, by the way. Too bad that SUPER SUNDAY is already taken.

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