Apple faces iTunes test case in Norway
Several European consumer groups have talked of attacking Apple’s “closed” music system over the past two years: it looks like the first challenge is now at hand.
Rom-burner Nero fiddles with Tivo with mixed results
The deal Tivo has struck with Nero to bring its DVR interface and software to the PC sounds like a logical step for a service that has been stuck in a box under the television.
But freeing Tivo from the confines of the living room makes less sense when everyone else – Apple, Netflix, Amazon etc - seems to be heading the opposite way towards that prime location.
In addition, taking the Tivo service out of a dedicated appliance and subjecting its software to the vagaries of PC performance is also a big gamble.
When I tried Nero LiquidTV with Tivo on a fairly new dual-core laptop, I suffered slow response times and stuttering video. The application also crashed repeatedly trying to update a programme guide.
Nero told me the product was optimised for quad-core PCs and the crash was probably due to a firewall problem. I was eventually able to get it working and liked the familiar Tivo interface and its superior usability, but my experience shows the problems that can be encountered when Tivo is taken out of the safe environment of its own hardware.
However, the Nero deal should give Tivo more exposure in Europe, where the German company can help to promote it beyond its UK beachhead.
Nero itself is looking for a boost from the partnership by expanding its reputation beyond that of being a leading provider of reliable CD and DVD-burning software.
Nero dukes it out with Roxio in that department, but the LiquidTV launch and that of another product – Move It - represents a major breakout from its category by the company.
Move It allows users to connect an iPod, digital camera, phone, portable console or any kind of MP3 player to a computer and seamlessly transfer content between all of the different devices, with Nero taking care of the different transcoding requirements in the background.
Unfortunately, while Nero’s demo was impressive, I was not able to get the program to recognise any of my devices when plugged into my own PC. Nero said it would provide free updates that would allow Move It to recognise the latest iPods and other devices, but the software is hard to recommend in its current state, despite offering a much needed solution for multi-device households wanting to share their photos, music and video.
Smallest billboards fit LittleBIGPlanet’s contradictions
Los Angeles is the biggest canvas for the art of the billboard, but the latest kind being deployed by Sony would not make much of an impact at Sunset and Vine.
To promote its forthcoming game LittleBIGPlanet, Sony has been planting probably the smallest billboards in the world all over LA, under palm trees and in public parks, and actually not minding if someone picks one up and takes it home.
The limited-edition billboards are a viral marketing gimmick intended to raise anticipation for the game’s release in October. They are already being offered on eBay with reserves of over $150.
“This is the world’s smallest outdoor billboard campaign,” Peter Dille, head of marketing, told me proudly at Sony Computer Entertainment America’s Silicon Valley headquarters today.
“This is to get people talking about LittleBIGPlanet. We knew as soon as these got placed that we’d stoke the fire amongst hard-core gamers and people would steal them.”
So this sounds as unconventional and user-centric as the title itself, which allows players to build their own game levels.
The billboards are more bait than actual adverts. They are meant to be stolen, sold on eBay and commented on across the web. In a way, it is Sony advocating piracy or at least turning it to its own advantage for once.
Goog-hoo deal finds a few friends in Washington
Another sign the Yahoo/Google pact is on a razor’s edge: a group of 11 House Democrats from California has written to attorney general Michael Mukasey pleading with him not to block the advertising partnership. They’re led by Anna Eshoo (pictured), whose Silicon Valley district encompasses the HQs of both companies. Extract:
“The competitive and disruptive nature of the Internet makes it extraordinarily difficult for any company to dominate. The rapid growth of the market and the increased potential in this space invites more and more competition.”
Such total faith in the pro-competitive nature of the internet prompts an inevitable question: Have the Congresspeople checked Google’s large (and growing) market share lately?
Getting ready for the Mobile Broadband Wars
This week’s official outbreak of the Mobile Broadband Wars (see my colleague Chris Nuttall’s description of the rival WiMAX and GSM initiatives to be announced in the next couple of days) has not come soon enough for many consumers.
Demand for high-speed mobile access has already become a big source of new business for Orange, according to Olaf Swantee, head of the French group’s mobile division. I caught up with Swantee when he was in San Francisco last week, and this seemed to be just about the brightest spot for his business right now. One in eight customers signing up for a new Orange account is doing so by buying a laptop computer in one of the company’s stores along with a broadband “dongle”, he said.
That shows the scope of the potential demand. Once consumers come to expect every computer, like every mobile phone, to have that connectivity built-in as a matter of course, it will fundamentally change the laptop market.
Maybe your next machine will come with a big carrier subsidy, bundled with a two-year HPSA contract. If so, then which retailers will consumers turn to for these connected machines, who is going to provide services and support, how will the economics be shared between mobile operators and hardware makers?
Google and gay marriage
You have to hand it to Google’s founders: having vowed when they took the company public to make the world a better place, Sergey Brin and Larry Page are not afraid to wrestle with the social implications, even if it takes them in territory that corporate executives generally shun (for good reason – it’s not always wise to take a public stance on something that will antagonise at least part of the workforce.)
Sergey Brin admits in a company blog post that the November ballot proposal in California to ban gay marriage is an “unlikely question” for Google to take a public position. He goes on:
However, while there are many objections to this proposition — further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text — it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 — we should not eliminate anyone’s fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.
Wimax v HSPA – let battle commence
A major skirmish in the battle over competing mobile broadband technologies is set for next week with launch announcements for WiMAX and HSPA.
Dan Hesse, Sprint chief executive, and Sean Maloney, executive vice president of Intel, will be in Baltimore, Maryland for the launch in that city of the first US WiMAX network.
The hoopla will include speeches, technology demonstrations from leading manufacturers and WiMAX availability in the area.
WiMAX provides broadband internet connections wirelessly over wide areas and claims better upload speeds than 3G mobile phone technology.
While Intel is introducing its WiMAX chipsets for notebook PCs (codenamed Echo Peak) in time for the US rollout, mobile chip players such as Qualcomm are fighting back with HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) 3G chips and cards that can also be included by notebook manufacturers.
In what appears to be an attempt to steal WiMAX’s thunder, the GSM Association has scheduled an announcement for Tuesday. It says:
“Some of the world’s best known mobile operators, PC companies and chipset providers are uniting to pre-install Mobile Broadband onto a range of notebook PCs that will be ready to switch on and surf straight out of the box. The 91-country initiative is the first step in the GSMA’s vision to create a new world of always-connected devices.”
The GSMA says it will also unveil “a new global service mark” that will be used to help consumers identify Mobile Broadband ready devices.
“The Mobile Broadband service mark will simplify buying decisions, especially for consumers.”
So it could come down to a battle of the branding – Intel WiMAX Inside versus Mobile Broadband.
Still, there seems to be a big enough pie in the oven to share. Gartner estimates 200m mobile broadband users in 2009 and Informa estimates 1.3bn by 2012.
Livemocha speaks to social language-learning trend
Social networking can provide the most value when it comes to receiving advice and problem-solving, whether it be someone responding to a Twitter question or checking out a user’s restaurant review on Yelp.
Increasingly, sites are depending on the wisdom of their users to build their businesses, from CrossLoop’s IT support to Trusera and PatientsLikeMe’s health advice and statistics.
Livemocha leverages the “world wide” bit of the web to create a language learning community and the Seattle-based company has just passed the 1m member mark, a year after launching.
Livemocha, currently a free service, provides basic online language lessons, but relies on its users helping each other by correcting their writing and pronunciation. In addition, they can produce “flash cards” – lists of useful words and phrases on particular topics.
Shirish Nadkarni, chief executive, told me members had also translated and extended its own language-learning content.
“One very committed individual translated the entire coursework into Icelandic. He’s a great example of someone who’s very passionate about his language and there are many more members like that,” he said.
Livemocha also added Arabic and Korean lessons to its 100+ languages this week and launched peer reputation ratings. Members can review and rate the work of others, allowing them to build up points and eventually earn “teacher” status.
This will lead to such users earning an income from tutoring services and Livemocha earning fees as an intermediary booking the classes for the student. Taking a percentage of future flash-card sales and charging for added-value coursework is also in the business model, along with the usual advertising.
Livemocha’s immediate competitors include FriendsAbroad and iTalki, but long term, its model could be disruptive to the established players of bricks and mortar language schools, CD-Rom learning companies and existing online schools.
Google fights back against the Microsoft lobbying machine
Plenty of bad blood has been stirred up by Microsoft’s heavy (and pretty effective) lobbying against the Yahoo/Google advertising alliance. The Yahoo/Google camp complains that Microsoft’s influence has been behind much of the chatter (both in the media and among trade associations representing advertisers and publishers) questioning whether the deal should be allowed to go ahead.
This just sounds like sour grapes. Microsoft tried to whip up a campaign like this against the Google/DoubleClick deal as well, but that effort singularly failed. There was simply no wider groundswell of anxiety about that deal. This time it’s different, and if Yahoo/Google hope to win the battle for hearts and minds they will have to do a much better job of explaining their case.
Google tries to do that today, with a new website laying out the arguments for the deal and highlighting favourable media and industry views. It is astonishingly late in the day to try this - the terms of the June agreement actually call for the advertising pact to be activated today (Thursday), though the companies have delayed until early October to buy more time. Regaining lost ground now will be hard. Mark one up for Microsoft’s slicker lobbying machine.
It looks like Digg is getting serious about beating back some of the competition that has begun to crop up in the social news space. Yesterday, the company that pioneered the user-driven approach to news announced its third funding round, a $28.7bn $28.7m haul led by Highland Capital Partners of nearby Silicon Valley.
The move will double Digg’s coffers, allowing it to double its staff, move to a new headquarters, and expand overseas. Four years after its launch, Digg remains one of the most popular news sites on the web. But its vote-based method for deciding which stories to display on its pages has spread far and wide, with some big media names – most notably Yahoo, with its Yahoo Buzz site - getting in on the act.
The site claims 30m unique users per month, double that of one year ago. It said its advertising revenues had tripled over the same period, according to the news release that accompanied today’s fundraising news.
With well-funded competitors nipping at Digg’s heels, and with interest in the news spiking as the US presidential elections enter full swing, the extra infusion of cash looks well-timed.
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