LIVEdigitally

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

Posted on by

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)

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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?

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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.

Why it’s (almost) 2014 and you still need a set top box

Posted on by

I actually had one of these!

I stumbled onto a discussion on Quora entitled “Why do we still have television set top boxes?” and as I often see, it’s full of conjecture and suspicion about the evil empire that is the pay TV industry.  While I am not specifically trying to support or vilify anyone from that industry, I thought it worthy a response that has less conspiracy theory than others.  So let’s start with some important facts:

1) Set Top Boxes (STB’s) take, on average, from day of deployment 30+ months to “break even” for a cable company2) Any tech support, home maintenance (“truck roll”), etc is costly to a cable company
3) Software updates, QA, etc are slow and costly to a cable company
4) Most north american pay TV providers now enable some form of “TV everywhere” service available by App or Browser
5) Many pay TV providers now offer same apps on Roku, Apple TV, and several smart TVs
6) Smart TV software platform updates happen 1+/year – which could easily result in incompatibility with pay TV services.  Only very recently have any of the manufacturers begun to standardize their own platforms.
7) The technology in homes is moving at an *extreme* pace, so even if a pay TV operator is moving “fast” they will still appear, relatively speaking, to be moving slowly.
7a) thinking point – Until about 5 years ago, this just wasn’t the case at at all, the pay TV providers didn’t really even need to innovate whatsoever.  So here we are 5 years later and they have APIs, multiple apps, etc – not too many industries one could point to and make a similar statement about incumbents…

I think if you add the above together, the answer should be something like this:

The pay TV industry would be happy to rid itself of STBs, but only *very recently* have viable alternatives hit the market.  Pay TV companies are very rapidly adopting these platforms, but your definition of “rapid” is radically out of whack with how an established industry moves.  Over the next few years you should expect most North American Pay TV providers to give you as a consumer multiple options for using their services in the platform of your choosing.

As a bonus:
8) CableCards *could have been* a good solution, but were way too soon to market to make the industry comfortable with them.  Ask yourself this question: if you were the person in charge of P&L on the hardware deployment business, and you knew full well that consumers will call you with any problems whatsoever, would you support some “standard” by which *other company’s hardware* was causing YOU customer service issues?  Me neither.

Gravity Movie Review (spoiler-free)

Posted on by

20130913-003420.jpgLet me start by disclaiming “spoiler free” – I assume you have seen a preview or read at least enough to know the most basic premise of the film. If you truly have no idea what it’s about, well, I make references to content used in the trailers. But seriously, if this does describe you, why are you even click to get this far?

I had a chance to see an early screener of the movie tonight, and felt like doing a little writing about it. In all candor, I’m more negative than positive on it personally, but I think there are a lot of reasons to go see it in theaters (if you are going to see it at all). Gravity might well define the “must see in theater” experience far more than any action movie ever would.

The Good:

  • Beautiful, amazing, breathtakingly phenomenal cinematography. I honestly feel closer to having an idea of what being in space might be like as a result of the way this was shot.
  • Solid acting. I felt the characters were genuine, and Clooney/Bullock fit their roles quite well – in fact I’m surprised at any negativity toward the acting on IMDB message boards or other spots.
  • Suspenseful. Cuaron did a great job keeping the audience on the edge of their seat, and had a solid balance between slowly built, drawn out sequences and other “gotcha” kind of moments.
  • Dialogue and characters. Great blends of comic and serious, deep and light, etc moments. Very well put together from that end.

    • The Bad:

  • Repetitive events. You know that scene in the preview where someone is grabbing on to some space ship part for dear life, and it appears that if they miss it they will be lost in space forever? Yeah, I’ve now seen that moment a few dozen times, to the point where I’d predict a Gravity Drinking Game around it. It’s just too much, and while I get it that that’s a big part of the premise, it becomes nearly comical after the first few times it occurs.
  • Too many crises. If you’ve read the trivia around Apollo 13, you’ve probably noticed they deliberately removed some of the events that transpired in real life from the film, mostly because they didn’t think the audience would find it believable. In Gravity, I felt that the cascading series of mishaps were just too many from start to finish. I think numerous moments could’ve been reduced or removed completely and the end result would’ve been more gripping. Instead, I kept getting that feeling where my suspension of disbelief was being taxed.
  • Too many “last possible moment” sequences. To avoid spoiling anything, just imagine a caper movie where the bomb is set to go off, and after a ton of action, the bomb is defused with less than a second to go. Now do it 3 or more (I’ve lost count) times in the same movie. It certainly builds up tension, but also increased the “okay, now they are just messing with me” effect.
  • The trailer. While I’d say it’s a tossup between Drive and Hancock as to “worst expectation setting for a movie, EVER,” I’d say Gravity’s trailer is on thin ice. If you’ve paid too much attention to it, it’s pretty ridden with spoilers (thankfully I had not seen it more than once before going into the movie). But if you also just saw it once or twice, you’d probably be thinking it’s a non-stop space action flick. It isn’t, and if you are unfamiliar with the director’s other works, you should definitely pay them some attention first. The movie paces really well actually, but it’s a much more drawn-out film than I think a lot of people will expect.
  • Annoying 3D. I wish I’d seen the IMAX 3D version, maybe that would change my feelings here. As it is, I didn’t, and other than 2-3 “really cool” uses of 3D, it was pretty superfluous to the movie.

    • Overall, I have negative feelings about Gravity. Per the above, it was wonderfully put together, but ultimately I felt the movie spent more time trying to manipulate me with unnecessary tension. I think the basic premise was suspenseful and dramatic enough, but had several too many “and now we’ll find a way for *another* crazy bad thing to happen” moments for me. I wish that weren’t the case, as I really did want to like it, but I’ve spent the past few hours picking it apart, not sitting around stunned at its beauty

    What a Next-Gen Apple TV Could Bring

    Posted on by

    While I’m not as bullish as others that the following tweet should be taken as gospel, I’ve been thinking a lot recently on what a new version of an Apple TV product could look like.

    So, in no particular order… “why update the Apple TV?”

    • 4K video
      I wouldn’t bet on this, at all, since there’s virtually no content available today, and probably won’t be much in the next 24-36 months.  If 4K looks promising, they can rev again in the future.  Further, Apple has historically *not* led in this category, and I’d be surprised to see them do it this time.
    • Rich SDK
      Yes, there are plenty of apps available for Apple TV today, but access is limited and granted in an ad-hoc fashion to selected content providers.  Many folks assume one day they’ll open this up to a wider developer network -as in, all developers.  I know very little about the programmability/guts of the Apple TV, but I have to assume the current one simply wasn’t designed to be uber-expandable.  As a sub-point, I *could* see an argument for an extension of iOS here, but I’d hope it’d be a differentiated offering to relate to the different UI mechanisms.
    • HDMI Passthrough
      For the literal heaps of things Google TV has done wrong, HDMI passthrough was smart.  Enabling the Apple TV to sit on Input 1 at all times enables no-input switching for any connected experience.  But even better than that, it’s not a stretch to see a version of AirPlay with a, wait for it, transparent layer.  What does that mean?  Imagine every cool thing about Interactive TV you’ve ever heard or thought of, minus all the lame stuff, now have it actually work, powered by your iPhone/iPad.  Awesome.
    • Gaming
      Many of us already believe the next generation of consoles is doomed, but what if the Apple TV came with an optional joystick and as much gaming horsepower as an iPad or Xbox 360, and stayed at the $99 price point?  It’s the exact opposite strategy Microsoft is taking with their platform (gaming first, everything else second), but since about 1998 that’s pretty much a winning approach.

    And that’s it – which is telling in its own way.  There’s no other “basic” TV/streaming need to upgrade the current hardware, and Apple certainly isn’t going to put out a new version without a very specific reason.  Perhaps I’m missing something (comment please!), but I am at a loss to come up with any other drivers for new hardware.   Oh, and yes, I’m ruling out Siri, physical motion gestures, cameras, etc – while any could certainly come at some point, they aren’t going to exist without one of the above as well.

    Which leaves me with the following: if you do not think the above reasons are compelling, and you can’t come up with a better one, I think you can pretty much write off a new piece of hardware.  Further, I have strong convictions that the only truly viable option above is adding a Rich SDK/open developers kit, so if we don’t see that next week, I don’t think we see any new device show up either.

    6 Reasons Why Apple Won’t Announce NFC Payments

    Posted on by
    stuffed-costanza-wallet

    DisCo-Stan-Za

    Disclosure: This is a Guest-contributed Post

    In the early part of the last decade, when everyone was carrying blackberries and phones, the big buzzword was “convergence.”  We couldn’t wait to have our phone mashup with our email device and carry just one electronic gadget that did both.  The iPhone launched and, though Blackberrys had added phone capabilities, this was true convergence as you could do email, browse the web, make phone calls (sometimes depending on AT&T), and listen to music.  This was the first widely adopted and functional “SmartPhone”.

    We’re still looking for that great convergence of your Smart Phone with our wallets and every Apple release is preceded by rumors of Near Field Communication (NFC) and mobile wallet.  Here are the reasons why as much as I’d love to ditch my George Costanza-sized wallet for one device, this isn’t going to happen this year:

    1. Stores don’t take NFC

    Sure there are some stores that have NFC terminals, but those account for about 2% of all terminals world-wide.  For those drugstores like CVS and Duane Reade that do have NFC, it’s painful to watch a clerk try to be helpful when they have no idea how the technology works.  Apple won’t ship a phone with NFC payments that only works in some stores, some of the time.

    2. It’s not Globally Equivalent

    When Apple ships a product it generally is the same product around the globe.  There aren’t iPhone 4x’s in Singapore and iPhone4z’s in Germany.  The world gets the same platform with a few modifications to radio frequencies.  Sure, they add currencies and countries to iTunes over time, but a core capability always ships around the globe within months.

    3. Apple isn’t first to market

    Remember the Creative Nomad Jukebox.  Most of you won’t, but this was one of the many MP3 players that launched before the iPod . How about the Treo mobile phone and email device. Apple is notorious for not being the first to market with a piece of hardware, but when they launch getting it so right that it blows everyone away.  There are plenty of people trying to do NFC like ISIS – the consortium of carriers, MCX – the consortium of merchants, Google – the consortium of Google.  Apple is happy to wait and watch how they fail, let them educate the market and spend to “terminalize” stores and then swoop in many years later with an updated PassBook that you’ve been using to go to concerts, movies, board airplanes, etc.

    4. Payments is messy

    Payments is a complicated beast that has so many hands in the cookie jar of a transaction taking their crumbs that it’s hard to distinguish from beltway politics.  When you think of where apple would fit in the ecosystem, they closest you get is a PayPal solution for online, where they can set the merchant discount rate.  At the store, unless they became their own payment mark (not happening in 2 weeks), then they’d be riding on someone elses “rails” (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Amex).   Sharing in this transaction with a partner upon whom they’d be reliant is not a very Apple thing to do.  They own customers and ecosystems.  They don’t share so well.  Also, payments is a high-touch, customer complaint wellspring.  Without accruing a lot of value to Apple, it doesn’t seem likely they would work to add this without nailing all the other promotional goodness that would yield benefit.

    5. Apple isn’t an advertising company

    The real money is in promotions and advertising where you don’t take .05% of a transaction,but get to take a bigger chunk by delivering a lead or changing customer behaviour. In previous efforts around advertising, Apple hasn’t had the stomach for these messy and high touch endeavors.  Look at iAd and why you don’t see Apple competing, seriously, with Google or even Facebook on that front.  They make software and hardware.  They generally aren’t great at services.

    6. Swipe isn’t broken

    Finally, Apple likes to create step-change in consumer experiences.  Swipe isn’t broken, nor does tap add that much ease of use and simplicity.  Anytime I’ve stood behind someone trying to pay with their mobile phone, I watch as customers get mad while they try and open the payments app, enter the pin code, and wait for the clerk to understand what’s happened because they didn’t hand over a credit card or cash.

    So, while Apple may launch a neat way to share songs or photos using BlueTooth LE or NFC, or greater enhancements to their ecosystem of entertainment like a more robust remote for your apple TV, I don’t see payments coming anytime soon for physical world transactions.