LIVEdigitally

Blocking Apple Pay Won’t… Pay.

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55688263So Rite Aid and CVS have decided to block Apple Pay in their stores. I’d characterize this as short-sighted and a likely damaging mistake. It’s one thing to not rush to adopt the new platform, but to deliberately get in consumers’ way is pretty much never the right option. Once a certain technology is in enough peoples’ hands and is convenient to use and the blockade is transparent enough to regular people, they will deliberately seek out alternate solutions.

As more and more people buy NFC-enabled phones (the technology that powers Apple Pay, as well as numerous Android options as well), they’ll expect/demand the convenience. Further, considering the motives of these retailers is suspect (they have a competing solution to avoid paying as much credit card fees), these are the combinations that create long-term resentment.

The better solution for these retailers is to re-enable Apple Pay, and then present a better, viable alternative. For example through loyalty programs, or discounts, or freebies, or any other positive incentive they can offer.

Considering the relative easy with which a consumer can choose a nationwide pharmacy chain, I’m curious to see how long this blockade holds.

Nine Thoughts On An Unbundled HBO

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HBOToday HBO’s CEO Richard Plepler announced that they’d offer some form of HBO service in 2015 that doesn’t require a cable subscription. From Re/Code:

Plepler said the company will go “beyond the wall” and launch a “stand alone, over the top” version of HBO in the US next year, and would work with “current partners”, and may work with others as well. But we wouldn’t provide any other detail.

This is what we’d call “kind of a big deal.”  It’s big enough to make my head spin a little bit, so I’m going to share my thoughts in a non-”prose” fashion. So in no particular ordering, my thoughts (mostly questions really):

“Could this be the death of Pay TV as we know it?” Yes, this could easily be the canary in the coal mine. If HBO “fully” unbundles, then the combination of Netflix+Hulu+HBO as (non-sporting) Pay TV Alternative is pretty compelling. And if it works, then it’d be easy to see ESPN and others follow suit. Which then takes us to unbundled TV – and probably higher overall content costs, but a lot fewer junky channels to watch.

“What exactly are they going to offer?” I highly doubt the Unbundled HBO offering will be the exact equivalent of the current HBOGO product/service. My bet’s on a library similar to what you can find in Amazon Prime.

“Is this for the masses?” About 30-odd-million US households have HBO. That leaves 80mm as the opportunity ahead. So do these folks not have HBO today because of price, interest, accessibility, catalog, other? Curious.

“This could have no impact on Pay TV after all.” Before we run off and say Comcast and Directv are ruined here, let’s go back to that 30 million HBO subscriber number. Does it *really* drop in a meaningful way? I could easily see this as a non-predatory move.

“But then again, what about cable-delayers?” We’re clearly seeing the adoption of Pay TV shift from something 22-year-olds do when they get their first apartment to something done later in life (long term impact of this is still TBD). It’s really, really hard to go FROM a full Pay TV lineup to an all on-demand/a la carte one. But the reverse isn’t true – if you have never had 500 channels, you don’t know what, if anything, you are missing. And with an HBO service available without Pay TV, maybe this impacts that delay even more.

“How will it price-compare to iTunes and Netflix?” If I were to buy the shows I already enjoy on HBO from iTunes, it’d cost me roughly $60 this year (Game of Thrones and Silicon Valley), or $5/mo. But if I were a larger consumer of their content, let’s say 6 original shows per year, that’d be roughly $15/mo. I’m not even using any new math to figure that all out – which means anyone/everyone can do the same. Would I spend more than that for full HBOGO access today? I don’t think so, because any price point above $10-15/mo is going to cause me, and others, to do math. Which turns out to not be that hard to do. Obviously with an unknown product offering, this is hard to speculate, but again – I’m curious.

“What does Comcast think?” While I don’t know the intricacies of the distribution terms between HBO & Comcast, I do know that, for the most part, Comcast tends to have a “most favored nation” type of clause. This is what’s historically prevented new offerings (Intel Media?) from actually competing in the market, since “nobody” can get better pricing than them for a given channel. So *something* exists between HBO & Comcast to enable this new service – wondering what that looks like.

“What if there’s more to the story in terms of distribution/devices?” Maybe this is an all-Amazon deal, and Prime subs get even more HBO, and that’s it? Or if it’s unique to iPad owners? Or is only on Samsung Smart TVs? Or Google Fiber? I don’t really think any one of the above is on the money, but there could definitely be other players involved here. Further, I’d muse that this is a distinctly “not available on a TV set or connected TV device” offering – but I could even be wrong on that too.

“What if it does actually still require cable?” It’s very hard today to subscribe to basic cable + HBO in all markets. What if this is a move that requires *some* kind of cable subscription, but then unlocks the full HBO service? This would still fit in the description Mr Plepler outlined earlier.

Add your thoughts to the comments below. And for no particular reason, the Game of Thrones theme sung using nothing but Peter Dinklage’s name:

Better Hobby: Blogging or Coding?

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Between a full-time job, a family, home maintenance, and some backyard chickens, I manage to drum up about 23 minutes a week for hobby-time. I have two areas of interest I continue to explore, and curious to get some feedback “from the cloud”. Would love any opinions on…

1) Blogging

So I’ve been blogging for a decade. I enjoy the process of picking a topic, thinking on it, and writing something up. But I often find it frustrating and unrewarding. It’s frustrating because there’s a feeling of pressure to keep up a certain pace/continuity in writing. It’s also tricky as I always want this to be my personal voice, and be free to write things without tying in my employer in any way.

2) Coding

I started programming as a teenager in the Turbo Pascal era, and stopped advancing in the early days of C++ and object oriented programming. I picked up PHP and JavaScript (and Visual Basic!) over the past decade, and while I’m nowhere near the calibre of a professional developer, can certainly build a thing or two of use. I’m now following the awesome Ray Wenderlich tutorials to learn Swift, which I’m mostly enjoying. But again, lots of frustrations as I get set back by not understanding some basic/fundamentals of either XCode, Objects, or some other “simple” knowledge base that I had never picked up.

In either/both case, I also have a personal bad habit in that when I get too frustrated or hit a roadblock, it’ll tend to set me pretty far back. Something I need to work on, of course.

Reason to code more: have fun building things. Best-case scenario is make working prototypes of ideas I have.

Reason to blog more: have fun writing about things. Best-case scenario is increase visibility as an industry thought leader.

Would love to hear any feedback (if anyone’s still reading?)!

Why Apple Watch Pricing is Brilliant

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90s-snap-bracelet-photolist-500Until Monday I was “that guy” fully believing Apple wouldn’t introduce a “watch” – maybe some kind of wearable (I had imagined a slap-wrist bracelet thing with Apple awesomeness) – but not a watch. I felt that (a) some kind of “remote extension” to the iPhone/iPad made a ton of sense but (b) “nobody” wants a watch. And then team Apple strutted their beautiful stuff, and I thought “gee willikers, at $99 that could just be a hugely adopted mainstream device.” But when the $349 price tag appeared, I scoffed and hemmed and hawed (note: no, I didn’t actually haw).

I woke up this morning thinking a little different. At $349 they might just have created another phenom.

At $99, I’ve realized, it may have been ready for mass adoption, but then – the masses may well have not adopted it. It’d be up for comparison with the various crud coming out of generic manufacturers. But not at $349.

What I believe Mr Cook and his cadre have created, at this much higher price point, is another high-falutin product. One owned by those with disposable income, enough that they’d “toss it away” on a “gimmicky” product. One with built-in scarcity.

In other words: they are re-creating want in a product, maybe even almost-need to those who can’t just have it.

Unlike the iPad, whose value I saw upon announcement, the Apple Watch is not so clearly framed in my mind. I can’t yet visualize how I’d use it on a day-to-day basis, which always slows down my likelihood to adopt.

But, I can now see the want that consumers will inevitably feel. The pride with which the early adopters will strut down the streets, wearing obviously too-short sleeves to ensure that everyone around will see they were first.  And one day it’ll drop to $299, then eventually some much more accessible price, perhaps even as low as $99 for a Watch Mini in a few years. Smart.

Why Twitch Will Be Bigger than Baseball (Smart Move, Amazon!)

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realsports_baseballYesterday, Amazon announced they purchased Twitch – a video site that lets viewers watch people play video games – for just under $1B.

First of all, the mid-1980s me who was mocked for playing computer games is elated to hear that (a) this exists, (b) the acquisition happened, and (c) a billion dollars! Somewhere inside I’m hoping all the “popular kids” are in some near-homeless state of living, but most of me has moved on from then (not really).

Second, as many others are pointing out, I think this is a great move by Amazon.

Third, I think the potential for Twitch is much, much bigger than a lot think, and will be a massively long term successful bet by Amazon. I think Twitch will be bigger than baseball, and here’s why, in convenient bullet format:

  • Video Games are shorter than baseball games, and people are impatient. If I had to make a wager on future trends, given society’s growing inability to sit around and do nothing for even a few minutes at a time, I’d bet that shorter-format anything increasingly wins over longer-format anything. Watch a full game, featuring the most talented people in the world (more on that in a moment), from start to end in 20 minutes versus watch a 1.5-3 hour game that may be two mid-level teams in non-divisional, non-rivalry play?
  • Video Games have global reach, and the world is increasingly “flat”. The World Cup set ratings records this year in the US. For soccer – the supposedly unsellable sport. In video games, anyone can play from anywhere, anytime. And as much as US broadcasters try to remind us that we only truly care about Americans, the impact of globalization is clear: audiences care for “the best” more than “those closest to home”. Further, there’s just a much much bigger audience potential.
  • Video Games are accessible to virtually anyone. Much like soccer, where all you need is a ball and some flat space to play, anybody with access to computers and the Internet can get into gaming. When I was a kid I dreamed of growing up to be first baseman for the Montreal Expos (I will hate Jeffrey Loria to the end of my days) – but I was unbelievably unlikely to become a pro baseball player. On the other hand, even now in my 40′s I could dedicate some serious hours to a given new video game, and just possibly be great at it.
  • Video Games are cheaper. Baseball is/was America’s pastime in large part due to the ease of which a family could just pick up and go to a game. At $200+ for a family of four, that’s no longer the case. So the cycle breaks down, the “family outing” for average Americans shifts to more affordable options. Without the “passing of the torch” and nostalgia, seems like there’s a gradual slope downwards for overall baseball popularity.
  • Video Game players aren’t icons. Because of the lack of physicality about video games, it’s unlikely that the “stars” and heroes of games will become household-known people.  Now their names, player names, avatars, etc will probably one day be at the Derek Jeter level of fandom. But even then - it’s more relatable for the average person.

I’ll be clear as a final point: this is not in any way a zero-sum game – baseball can still be huge AND watching gaming can be huger. But as I see it, Amazon just bought themselves not a team, but an entire sports league – with tremendous growth and potential still ahead of it.

Are we actually in a tech bubble? (nope)

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popping-soap-bubbleJust read a piece by someone anonymous (which I don’t actually have a problem with) about how we are in a bubble.  The money quote from my perspective is:

We’re in a bubble and the market is overheated. That’s not disputable. That doesn’t mean we don’t have a few good years left before lean times set in. Fools tend to call peaks early and often.

I’m sorry, but this is a poor argument for “we’re in a bubble”.  Regardless of your belief of the statement, having rationales of “I’m older than you”, “markets have downturns”, and “capital mgmt is heavily investing in tech” is insufficient to support a bubble (or not) theory.

For us to be in a bubble means there’s some underlying fundamental that’s incorrect.  For example, in dot-com it was “anyone can IPO – wheee this is fun!” and in ’08 it was “houses will soon be worth infinite money, buy now!”.  I’m paraphrasing of course.  But I have yet to hear a single convincing argument of “the thing” that the bubble is built on.

Today, I can look at signs of VC investment into, say the sharing economy, or drones, or VR, or some sector I’m not personally a believer in and conclude: “VCs are overly banking on XXX.”  If I’m correct, many VCs will lose money on those investments – but that’s actually part of the model there, so not a bubble.  Further, a specific sector, ex Sharing Economy, could turn out to be bogus – which will cause a boatload of fail, but not a collapsing bubble.

Or I can say “the tech sector of the public market is overvalued” and therefore there’s a bubble.  Well, there could be a correction, and tech companies may lose value – or the entire market – but this still has nothing to do with bubbles.

I could point to all sorts of other “signals”, like bloggers becoming VCs, or theories about robot world domination, or millions of dollars poured into building a SmartCup.  But what are they signal of?  That a smart individual is changing careers, or that a prominent technologist has a theory about something, or that someone really wants to know if they are drinking apple juice or… not apple juice?  Not bubbles (unless it’s sparkling apple juice, that is).

Fundamentally, as another guy who was here through the entire dot-com cycle through to today, the current state of the tech industry seems to be full of companies that, gasp, actually make a bunch of money. And it’s full of many many companies who will fail, taking smart people and smart money down with them.  Such is life.  But this too, does not a bubble make.

On a related note – I do want my Kozmo back.

Let’s Start Fixing Twitter – For Real

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It’s fair to say that for many mainstream users, the Twitter experience is pretty broken for anything other than celebrity stalking. It’s way too easy to make mistakes with serious consequences (DM for the fail), @replies are wonky, and #hashtags #really #OMG #canwekilltheseobnoxiousthings #JimmyFallon #JustinTimberlake #FTW.  Real-time translation is nice, but it’s the sprinkles, not the cake. Here are my simple fixes to the Twitter experience that I’d love to see happen:

Fix media tweets.

Here’s a recent tweet with an image link:
2014-06-13_1026

Why on earth is there a link, highly visible, to the exact page the user is on? This makes, literally, no sense and contributes to a cluttered interface. Fix this: removing all awkward links.

Eliminate character use for @mentions

Personally I’d question the 140-character limit at this point – it’s arbitrary and while limits are a good thing, maybe 200 is better? Maybe 250? Who knows? Frcing txtspk on nrml ppl is rlly annoying if u want their attn in the long run. Kthxbye.  Either way, using characters in communications means the system discourages people with longer twitter names from conversations, and further discourages users from having engagements with multiple people simultaneously. So @ESPN is rewarded, @BleacherReport is punished. And those poor @Kardashians. Fix this: each @reply only counts as a single character each.

So now I could write a tweet that could include @all @three @kardashians but those 22 characters would be reduced to 3, and I’d still have tons of space for telling them how amazing they are and make the world a better place. I mean, I don’t actually know what they do, but they wouldn’t be so popular if they weren’t somehow contributing to the greater good, I assume.

Ditto for hashtags and URLs

Before I go into whether or not I think #hashtags #make #sense, again if we want to see more engagements with more people on more topics, Twitter should encourage their use (and links), as opposed to discourage it. Even with a URL shortener (next topic), linking out takes up far too much of my precious character space. Fix this: each #hashtag and link only count as a single character each.

Auto-fix ALL link URLs with sensical content

I don’t want to see a bit.ly or an ow.ly or a t.co – ever again.

2014-06-13_1042

Why do we have to see these things? Beyond the possibility for malicious links, it’s just not necessary.  Fix this: The twitter “client” (web or mobile app) should replace all these links with either the full destination URL, or better yet, the Title tag of the destination page.

Eliminate “mistakes” in DM or @replies

In every medium but Twitter, mistakes are correctible before sending. Sure you might have meant to BCC your colleague instead of CC’ing them, or you accidentally hit reply-all, but these mistakes are in plain sight prior to hitting send. In Twitter-land, since one can create a DM via the Create Tweet button, it’s far too easy to make a mistake.

Screen Shot 2014-06-13 at 10.48.28 AM

Similarly, I’d make a big wager that even highly proficient Twitter users are unaware that tweets starting with an @reply are NOT seen by their followers in their own feed. So when someone wants to go on a “@brandname you destroyed my life” rant with the intent of public visibility, then wonders why there’s no retweets happening, they should be able to figure it out. Fix this: eliminate the ability to craft DMs other than by the “DM” button, and add a pop-up informing the user about their attempts at either manual DMs or @replies so they understand the consequence of the Tweet.

Fix Search & Hashtags

I am not an expert at search, but I accept that trying to search a colossal data feed that’s constantly moving and updating sounds like a big problem. And hashtags are just plain ugly. But either way, it is increasingly true that neither manual search or following hashtags is an effective way to get information out of the Twitter stream beyond a lot of noise. Fix this: you’re kind of on your own here, but you employ a lot of smart people – make this a priority.

Improve the Game Mechanics

Last I read the average Twitter user (who even Tweets, at all) has about a dozen followers, most of whom are likely just bots informing them about deals they could get on new iPads. There’s literally no way to “catch up” to people who started a few years ahead of them, and because follower count is so prominently displayed across all aspects of Twitter, the game mechanics inherently discourage becoming an active user. Fix this: there are tons of ways to improve the find & follow experience, which must become part of onboarding and daily use. 

Conclusion

I could go on a lot longer on little tweaks here and there. Twitter still has, in my eyes, a lot of interesting potential in so many different fields – but it just has to focus focus focus on product and user engagement. Trending topics is increasingly annoying, the new user experience is still mostly a disaster, etc. Maybe I’ll write another post, or leave it to you to comment here and add your thoughts. Then we can all tweet about it with hashtags and such!

 

Solution to Facebook Feed Problem: Trust Your Users

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Facebook is constantly “tweaking” their news feed algorithm – the thing that determines what you see. The current rules seem to be:

  1. Baby photos
  2. Pictures of food
  3. Pictures of exotic locations
  4. Updates from people you rarely interact with
  5. More baby photos, in case you missed some
  6. The stuff you actually find interesting

I don’t need to visit the neighborhood psychic to make a simple predication: Facebook cannot possibly make all users happy, no matter how much they tweak.

Personally I’ve pretty much abandoned the ‘book, but as I talk to people who use it more than I do, I’ve noticed a simple common theme running across them. Everyone looks at Facebook a little differently. To some it’s a way to stay in touch with anyone they’ve ever met. To others its a vital communications tool. Another friend of mine calls it a digital “locker room”.  I can go on at length, but the only thing I’ve learned is there’s literally no way to define Facebook consistently. And if its users can’t do it, neither can the company.

So instead of continuously reworking the magic algorithm (and upsetting the revenue generators while they’re at it), Facebook should switch strategies, and follow the same things that the audio/video industry figured out a long while ago: create some feed profile archetypes, and let the users take control.

What does CATS do???

What does CATS do???

Most of the time, we leave the TV in the default profile (which, by the way, you should never, ever do), and it works just fine (because you don’t know what you should be seeing).  So Facebook could do the same thing:

Of course, includes C.A.T.S.!

Of course, includes C.A.T.S.!

The default could be the ever-changing-tweaky-awesome-algorithm-of-magic, which is fine. It would then be easy for the user to change their View of Facebook to reflect what they want to see. It wouldn’t prevent Facebook from running ads, nor neglect the evilness of Boosts, but would probably make everyone’s life in and out of the industry just a wee bit easier.

Even my car stereo from the 90s had an equalizer…

Why Does Anyone Expect More From Apple?

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Just read Walt Mossberg’s piece on “Apple is Like a Movie Studio” where he (as he typically does) makes excellent points on consumer electronics and Apple’s role in them for the past decade. But then the piece moves into the following statement:

But there have been no new game-changing products, the kind that establish whole new categories, or which finally get product categories right after others had attempted for years to do so. The last of these, the original iPad, was released four years ago this month.

This is true. But really – how off the charts are these expectations? In the last decade Apple “pioneered” (I use the term somewhat loosely since there were actually other players in the space, just none of them building anything on par with what Apple did), and today lead the categories for:

  • ultrathin laptops – MacBook Air
  • smartphones – iPhone
  • tablets – iPad
  • internet STBS – Apple TV

So if we’re doing the “movie studio” analogy let’s call them Pixar (or Universal or whatever).  If the comparison is “invented entire categories” can we name *ANY* other movie studio on a relative basis?  I cannot. Sure, Samsung, LG, Microsoft, others “make devices” but what have they actually done on par with Apple?  Nothing.  I’m not bashing the Galaxy phone or LG TVs or HP laptops in any way disparaging those companies – but they have NOT created new markets out of thin air the way Apple has this past decade.

So perhaps they might not have any more category killers that the world’s never seen. So what? “sequel time is over”? This is the problem with setting such expectations – if they “just” act like their competitors, and make (and sell) lots of devices – is that really such a failure? Mind you I don’t believe this to be their fate, but so what?

If you really, REALLY must compare to movies, then let’s call them James Bond. some years you get The Living Daylights or The World is Not Enough (excuse me while I vomit into my popcorn watching Denise Richards be a “Nucular” Engineer or whatever)… But sometimes you get Dr. No, or Goldfinger, and those are the ones everyone remembers. And along the way a Bourne or Mission Impossible show up, and they’re pretty great too – for a while. And it could even be another decade, but somehow, out of nowhere, you get a Casino Royale, and all is right in the world again.

Thoughts on Amazon Fire TV

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amazon_fire_tvLet me open by saying: clear win for Amazon. Here’s why:

  • Internet streamers are still a growing market, only present in less than a quarter of US households – not to mention International opportunities. Bringing *any* product to market under the Amazon brand is sufficient to move units. Amazon has an amazing channel to sell through, and numerous reports cite them as the #1 outlet for both Chromecast and Roku products.
  • It’s at worst a good-enough product, at best it’s the most thoroughly designed Internet STB available on the market today. Unlike the first gen of Kindle Fire, which had to compete against a mature iPad, there’s nothing utterly amazing in the category to compare against.
  • Supporting non-Amazon content is brilliant. I think they could’ve pulled off a winner just by supporting Amazon Prime and Amazon Instant Video, but now it opens up to anyone who watches any streaming content. Plus, just as Apple TV helps sell iTunes content, I’d be shocked to discover that FireTV households don’t slowly convert into Amazon content customers.
  • I’ve heard some naysay (already!) about the price point, and how it should be cheaper than Apple TV to compete. Totally disagree, no reason to do this as there’s no other magic point under $99 other than hitting $49, which I don’t see a reason to do.

Other stuff I like:

  • Voice search seems nicely done, especially in context with the mess of any 10-foot-UI experience.
  • Gaming! Very smart to make this a core component of the platform – I actually hope this remains in the cheap, simple, and easy category of gaming. Not that I don’t love trying to push 17 buttons on my Xbox controller simultaneously, but I think “Big Gaming” is just too complex these days and there’s a latent opportunity for simpler stuff.
  • Gary Busey

My two minor (emphasis on minor) missed opportunities:

  • HDMI passthrough. The single good aspect of the original Logitech Google TV product was HDMI passthrough – it let the end-user connect the device to the fought-after Input One, and work well. While I know adding passthrough isn’t going to sell any more Fire TV’s, it’s one of those little things I’ve been hoping for.
  • Not Free With Prime. Okay, this isn’t exactly fair to complain about, but I harbored this suspicion that Amazon would offer the Fire TV free with a 2-year Prime subscription. Now they always can just start a program like this, but I think it’d be a major wow-er out of the gate.

Let me close this this: building products is hard. Building really good products is very very hard. To get a 1.0 product out of the gate in such a strong state is impressive work, and while many might call it a “me-too”, I don’t. I think this is the exact right first step for Amazon in the living room, and will keep an eye on where it goes from here.

Prediction: Amazon Fire TV is the #2 Internet STB on the market (behind Apple) within 2 years.

Also, and again, Gary Busey.

Facebook’s Brand Extortion Perception Problem

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extortionI originally read Eat24′s “breaking up with Facebook” post via Zite and it echoed so true, I shared it with a lot of folks I know. I wasn’t planning to blog anything, but wrote such a long comment to Mathew Ingram’s piece, I thought, hey, why not – let’s blog this one!

I don’t think anyone’s complaining about signal-to-noise, or even paying to have reach. I’ve never heard a brand complain about running Facebook ads. I think they are complaining about the following:

Facebook users are instructed to Like brands to get updates from them. There is no mention to users as to how to control frequency of said updates, nor any disclosure about brands *having to pay* to reach them.

This is at best unfortunately disingenuous. At worst its deliberately misleading.

What makes it all much, much worse, IS the tweaking of algorithm. If you were managing a brand’s Facebook page, you’ve noticed a steady drop in every single stat/category – unless, of course, you pay. This too is not disclosed to brands. As a result, it certainly appears that Facebook initially made it free & easy for brands to get “hooked” on posting to Facebook, and then, without warning, came along and said brands would then need to pay for the same reach they previously enjoyed.

Now we can certainly remain positively-minded and call this “evolution of a model” – but it sure comes across a lot like extortion. And when Facebook replies with callous comments, it does nothing but reinforce that perception.

Personally, if I were running a brand, I’d make every effort possible to create a funnel FROM my Facebook page to *anything else*. Email newsletters, Twitter accounts, etc – all services where the expectation/understanding of how brands are positioned *to consumers* is clear. The problem I see for Facebook is I’m not the only one thinking this way – it’s an increasing sentiment and one they should stem the tide of.

I’d suggest they start by fixing 3 things:

  1. Inform Users that Liking a brand on Facebook is not the same as subscribing to a newsletter. It’s an indication of taste, and occasionally that brand may appear in a Wall feed.
  2. Guarantee Something to brands so they can make meaningful long term plans. I think a lot of brand managers would feel better about betting on Facebook if they could provide guaranteed plans of any kind – I wonder how many people have had to tell their boss that their reach dropped 90% without anyone knowing how/why.
  3. Enable Subscribing to Brands for end-users. I understand Facebook controls the overall algorithm, but how about letting a user take control of some components? This could be a paid service to the brand – whatever – but if I *want* to get every update from a Reebok, Nike, NextGuide, Eat24 – shouldn’t I be able to?

Curved TVs are the new 3DTVs

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20140108-162233.jpgApparently the hot, buzzy thing at CES this year is the curved OLED TVs. I saw one – it’s very very pretty. And much like the last 2 attempts by manufacturers to stir up interest in buying new sets, this just isn’t going to cut it.

Firstly, we all need to acknowledge the massive rush to buy new sets last decade occurred because of *multiple* factors that contributed to a zeitgeist-level shift in set ownership:

  • Thinness: sets went from being 2 feet deep to 6 inches or less deep
  • Size: sets went from 27 inches to 50 inches
  • Resolution: shift from below standard definition to high definition
  • Quality: not only the raw resolution, but every aspect of picture quality was obviously visually improved
  • Sex appeal: being early to having a plasma was sexy – then when it became mainstream enough, not having some kind of flatscreen was definitively unsexy
  • Format shifts: simultaneous to new sets, tons of new content was instantly available – and not just new content, but libraries of favorites were accessible
  • Set price: getting a flatscreen (at Costco!) was very very affordable
  • Content price: while VHS libraries were only for the few, building a collection of your favorite DVDs was relatively inexpensive (for younger readers: VHS tapes in the early 90s would sell for $80 or so)

All of the above occurred in an effective blink of an eye. There were so many reasons to to upgrade, it just had to happen.

But now that these beautiful, thin, huge displays got mounted on peoples’ walls, it’s become a lot harder to unmount them. I don’t even want to think about doing it – and I don’t think the manufacturers have yet presented us a reason to follow along.

Smart TV? OK, if I’m buying a new set. Or I just get an Apple TV, Roku, Xbox, Playstation, Chromecast, etc. I gain very little benefit from an actual set upgrade, compared with the cost of an add-on box that I can easily replace. It’s akin in my eyes to paying the extra $3+K for an in-dash GPS unit as opposed to buying a $100 Garmin, or just using my phone.

2nd try: 3dTV? Personally, I actually avoided one the last time I bought a set (63″ Samsung plasma – yes!). Turns out I wasn’t the only one, and 3d was (as I predicted it would be) quite a failure.

Batter up…. CURVED SETS! Huh? Don’t get me wrong – they are pretty in so many ways. Thinner than my iPad – love it, very slick. But would I even consider the hassle of the upgrade for it? Same deal for 4K – just not *enough* to cause another societal shift for “MORE”. Further, I think the curved nature of the device is an ill-fit for most living rooms, where the benefit of super-thin is eliminated by the odd shape in the room. Has anyone checked if these things are Feng Shui?

Sooner or later we’ll likely find the next big reason to upgrade displays, but it’ll have to rank in there in the leagues of when TV was first available to the masses, to when it first went color, to the current state, before it happens.