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Now – DRM Controversy, Next Up – Data Portability
The online DVD rental/Video service Netflix caused a bit of a dustup when they decided to eliminate the Profiles feature from their service., As I understand it, this feature allowed customers to create several profiles within a single Netflix account so different members of a family or roommates could separate their lists of DVD rental requests and not have them all jumbled together. This seems to have been a popular feature amongst a certain segment of Netflix's customers, some of whom are now threatening to jump to competitor Blockbuster if Netflix doesn't bring it back.
However, should these defectors go through with their threats, they'll find themselves faced with a bit of a nasty dilemma. A key feature of Netflix's service is you can rate videos and Netflix will come up with recommendations for other videos their algorithms think you will like. If my experience with music recommendations is any guide, it can take a fair amount of recommendations before you can "tune" the system to provide you with recommendations that really work. Blockbuster also has a recommendation system, but for the Netflix defectors they'll have to start all over again. It may take a while, but this is pointing to what I think will be next big controversy in multimedia beyond the current anti-DRM backlash.
While the cognitive costs of having to start rating videos over again in a new DVD rental service may not be all that high, I do think this is going to change. As we see the huge amount of digital media washing over consumers and as much of that digital media, particularly video, is being accessed from devices with constrained interfaces, making text search pretty cumbersome, consumers are increasingly going to rely on "media guides" which will have knowledge of their personal media preferences. Most likely many of these guides will be tied to the provider of the media or network service (i.e. ISP or cable company, etc.). Should you decide to switch to another provider, you'll have to teach it about yourself all over again.
Basically, this results in a new type of lock-in, one of the issues the anti-DRM crusaders have bashed the media industry with. The main issue behind this new lock-in, referred to as Data Portability, is one which is being debated but more at the digerati level and hasn't quite reached the popular consciousness. However, I have been around long enough to remember when the DRM debate was at the same level. Service providers may want to keep that in mind as they plan these sorts of services.
Posted by Phillip Keys : 10:09 AM | Comments (0)
Yahoo! JAPAN and Sharp Prove the Marriage of TV and the Internet Can Be Beautiful
If you're at all interested in or involved with the technology industry, by now you've probably seen some version of the Internet on a TV. Anyone remember WebTV out there? Of all the attempts I've seen so far, generally the graphics have left much to be desired. This is not surprising; after all you're taking light weight graphics and putting them up on a screen they weren't designed for.
However, last week I was in Tokyo and had the chance to see a demo of a Yahoo! JAPAN service which blows away anything I've seen so far. The service is called Yahoo! JAPAN for AQUOS, in this case AQUOS is Sharp's Internet AQUOS LCD TV line. It's a service specifically designed to display Internet based graphics and text at a 1920 x 1080 resolution. Here's an article we did on the service http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080515/151751/.
There are some pictures in the article but really they're no substitute for the impact of seeing the service displayed live in front of you on a large screen . One of the services Yahoo! JAPAN is providing which I found particularly impressive was a travel service where you could make reservations for such things as hot spring hotels. The high definition graphics of the hotels really stood out and made the service something you would want to use just to look at the pictures. Another service I really liked was the Internet picture books series which rendered children's picture books onto the TV screen. I'd rather have my daughter look at this then a lot of the children's programming out there that has sucked her in.
According to Yahoo! JAPAN, one of the keys to the Yahoo! JAPAN for AQUOS service was Sharp's technology which upscaled graphics for HD presentation. However, Yahoo! JAPAN also went beyond the graphics and did something which makes you want to smack your head and say "d'oh." They added a soundtrack to the service. As Yahoo! JAPAN pointed out, the TV experience always involves sound.
Hopefully this sort of service will make it here to the US at some point. In the meantime, if you don't mind the Japanese text, you can get a taste of it at http://aquos.yahoo.co.jp/.
Posted by Phillip Keys : 10:55 AM | Comments (0)
