Archive for August, 2009
Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick …
Saturday, August 29th, 20094% Of All Israelis Are Certifiably Insane
Saturday, August 29th, 2009George Bush Was What Again?
Saturday, August 29th, 2009Not a Confidence Builder
Saturday, August 29th, 2009A True Believer
Saturday, August 29th, 2009The brotherhood and sisterhood of true Southerners
Friday, August 28th, 2009Democrat Tort Reform NOT
Friday, August 28th, 2009Walking Here
Friday, August 28th, 2009Home-based businesses driving $2.5 billion software market
Friday, August 28th, 2009This story says that software for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch has grown to $2.5 billion. This is a market that did not exist just two years ago. What the article does not mention is that most of the programmers writing and selling software for the iPhone are working from home, and many of those businesses are making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
This is where broadband becomes important. These home-based software businesses have to have reliable, high performance broadband connections--to coordinate activities with other programmers and co-workers also working with home, to upload and download software, and to access online business services (e.g. accounting, printing, etc.) that enables these work from businesses.
Economic developers: What is your strategy for attracting these new home-based businesses? Are you working with local builders and developers to ensure that "Internet ready" homes are available? Are you supporting a regional effort to improve access and affordability of broadband? Do you have a virtual business incubator that is designed to help home-based entrepreneurs grow successfully?
Communities that market their quality of life, their recreational resources, and that have open access broadband have a recipe for growth.
New technology creates new markets and new opportunities
Friday, August 28th, 2009Sirius XM has introduced something I might consider buying--it's a dock for an iPhone/iPod Touch. As I've said repeatedly, I don't want more gagdgets in my life. I have too many already. I want fewer, more capable pieces of technology. I've avoided a satellite radio because my car does not have one built in, and I have not wanted another one trick gadget in the car with another charger and cables taking up space. But this little dock is brilliant--it plugs into the 12 volt adapter in your car, charges your iPhone, and turns your touchpad iPhone into a Sirius/XM radio.
This devices highlights the brilliance of the iPhone as the first open cellphone platform (Apple now has competition from Google's Android phone and Palm's Pre). The iPhone as a platform rather than a dedicated phone has created new business opportunities, and by extension, new jobs.
Do We Really Want To ‘Reform’ Health Care?
Friday, August 28th, 2009I Wonder How I’m To Take This
Friday, August 28th, 2009Greenland Is Melting. Again.
Friday, August 28th, 2009Liberals Are Morons
Friday, August 28th, 2009Haves vs. Have Nots
Friday, August 28th, 2009Twenty-One Lunar Proposals Underway
Thursday, August 27th, 2009The Point at Emerald Isle Aug 09 [Flickr]
Thursday, August 27th, 2009Broadband is killing TV, slowly but surely
Thursday, August 27th, 2009A sure sign that interest in TV is waning is the fact that major media firms like Disney, Viacom, CBS, and Time Warner have announced a partnership with some of the biggest advertisers in the country (Proctor & Gamble, AT&T, Unilever) to create a new ratings system that will more accurately measure viewer habits. The current Nielsen system is decades old, and the complaint is that it does not accurately measure the effect that DVRs and broadband are having on viewing habits.
People are not watching less "TV." In fact, they may be watching more when you add in video on demand services like Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu. But content developers and advertisers can't really tell from the antiquated Nielsen ratings system.
Design Nine is already working with some of the most innovative and technologically advanced IP TV service providers in the country. Firms like Cisco are building sophisticated new video on demand head end platforms for providers. Over the next ten years, TV as we know it is going to morph into a much richer, interactive, on-demand service that will blend access to "TV" shows, movies, live performances (e.g. NASCAR races, concerts, etc.), gaming, reality shows, and audience participation format shows like American Idol.
Where will this be available first? Communities with high performance open access broadband networks will have it first, because they have the business model to accommodate these new IP TV providers and the open access networks will have the bandwidth to make them work.
Sony ebook takes on the Kindle
Thursday, August 27th, 2009Sony has announced it's $400 ebook. Intended to compete with the Amazon Kindle, the device costs $100 more than the Kindle but works with several open ebook formats, giving users access to a wider range of books.
Both devices are likely to founder. Everyone is sick of lugging around multiple devices, and worse, all the special cables and chargers needed for them. I'm kicking myself for buying a small Nikon camera without checking on the data cable--the camera uses a proprietary cable instead of more common mini-USB cable, meaning I now have to lug around yet another cable.
Enough information is leaking out now that it appears very likely that Apple is going to release a tablet device either this fall or in early winter. When it is released, it will kill both the Kindle and the Sony ebooks. A Apple tablet will support email, Web browsing, and probably thousands of applications, as opposed to the ebooks that do only one thing. We just don't have enough room in our bags and briefcases to lug around a laptop and an ebook device, and for a lot of us, a capable tablet will replace both the relatively heavy laptop and will also serve as a very capable ebook reader.
Book publishers are playing along with Sony and Amazon right now because they have to, and it's a good way to gain some experience with the economics of ebooks. But a more popular device that supports many book formats, not just one or a few, will swamp the competition. It's only a matter of time.