New Florence. New Renaissance.

Rethinking the TV Remote

To bring remotes from the age of 1,000 buttons to the age of modern tech, companies downsized. For some, it was because of a realization that consumers wanted simplicity. Others were prodded along by the minimalism of Apple Inc. and Roku remotes. The way we watched TV was changing—more on-demand streaming, less regular programming—and so was the way we interacted with all of our devices. Voice assistants became the most prominent characteristic of the modern remote, featured in those for Apple TV, Amazon Fire, and Google’s Chromecast, as well as Roku.

WSJ

 

 

If Rip Van Winkle had fallen asleep watching TV

…20 years ago, he would wake up a wild new world of today's television

Costco Connection has a primer on LED, OLED, QLED, Mini-LED sets and resolutions – 1080p, 4K, 8K, HDR, Dolby Vision

Popular Science provides an update on TVs at this week’s CES in Vegas

and then there is the ever changing range of streaming, cable and other content

Michael Saves discusses likely streaming trends in 2022

The democratization of the TV studio

I have interviewed over 25 C level executives in the last month about acrobatics during the COVID-19 crisis, WFH and re-open physical site protocols and the "new normal" in their industry.

Most have done these interviews from their home offices, and I have been fascinated with all the Zoom backgrounds they have been using. Lots of creativity. (The links allow you to watch the complete session with each)

Jeff Robertson, COO of Maxar Technologies, lives in the Denver area. I thought he had a view of the Rockies in his background. It's actually a picture from one of his earth observation satellites of Mt. Fitz Roy in Patagonia in S. America - "taken from the horizon thousands of miles away." BTW, I half expected his twins to Zoom bomb the session. Apparently, his staff have issued them Maxar badges:)

Aneel Bhusri, CEO of Workday, had a background with his favorite pizzeria in San Francisco and hopes it survives the dine-in restrictions most states have had on restaurants

Ray Lane, Managing Partner at the VC firm, GreatPoint Ventures, started his interview from his "man cave" with some of his trophies in Silicon Valley. He then moved to another part of his house with better wifi connectivity for the session.

Mike Ettling, CEO of Unit4 had his corporate green screen as background. He looks charming, but told me they are moving to a more neutral color for future recordings.

Mike Laven, CEO of Currency Cloud, tried to do his session from the balcony of his flat in London. It was unusually bright for London (imagine!) and he moved in for the recording.

Tara Gambill of MOD Pizza, Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh of Salesforce, Alex Shootman of Workfront and Jerry Foster of Plex, showed off their home offices in WA, CA, UT and MI, respectively.

The fact they are doing this from all over the country is so calming. It is so different from the doom and gloom in the media - nice to hear and see people on the ground.

Andre Blumberg of CLP Power has been the only interviewee so far to do the session from a corporate, not a home, office. He forgot there was a motion detector in the boardroom in Hong Kong. We had a momentary loss of lighting and you can see him wave his hands to trigger the sensor :)

My wife has set up several different backgrounds for me to use. The one I have mostly used is in the library as in the ASUG Virtual Summit where Tom Wailgum interviewed me. (For a change we used the ON24 platform, not Zoom.)

Eagle eyes will notice that only one small portion of the library has copies of my 7 books. Like I said it's Margaret's library. I am only allowed to periodically use it:)

The ASUG event was scheduled to be in-person in Orlando. I wanted to use my deck and dock as background to provide the Florida vibe. I realized, however, I would only annoy viewers who were watching while a freak May storm dumped snow in their yards.

I have found French Blue shirts show best on these videos so in case you are wondering how fresh they are, here's proof of plenty of reinforcements. My dry cleaner has been pleased to see me even as my travel needs have dropped. :)

Many more sessions coming up so I will likely have more interesting backgrounds to share. 

Locast - latest battleground for cable cord cutters

If you’re one of the many people who have cut the cord and moved from cable to streaming TV, you’ve probably lost access to most, or all, of your local stations. And your options (unless you want to reattach that cable box) are limited. You can buy a separate antenna in order to access these stations, but your reception may be limited by how strong the signals are and whether they are blocked by nearby structures. So what do you do?

There is currently at least one service that is trying to fill the gap. Locast is a relatively recent streaming service that offers access to local broadcasting.

How can Locast do this? Unlike Aereo, a commercial service which provided local programming until it was shot down by the Supreme Court in 2014, Locast has registered as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit advocacy group (under the auspices of the Sports Fan Coalition). According to its FAQ, since it doesn’t get any “direct or indirect commercial advantage” from the transmissions, it has the right to broadcast local stations.

The FAQ also cites Locast’s ability to charge a fee “necessary to defray the actual and reasonable costs” of providing the service. Technically, Locast doesn’t charge a fee — it asks for contributions of at least $5 per month.

The Verge

Last week, all four major broadcasters (ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox) filed a copyright suit against Locast.... The best way to understand the history of this approach is through the lense of Aereo, a similar service that was sued out of existence in 2014. Broadcast is free to anyone with an antenna, so Aereo allowed users to rent an antenna and a DVR in Aereo’s warehouse, which got better broadcast reception than many homes. Users could then record and stream broadcast content over the internet. Broadcasters sued Aereo, that the service violated their copyrights. As Public Knowledge’s John Bergmayer noted at the time of the Aereo lawsuit, it doesn’t make any more sense for Aereo to be violating copyright by renting out antennas than it does for Radio Shack to be in violation for selling those antennas out of its storefront.

Public Knowledge

 

 

 

TV as the new apps playground

Content providers are evaluating apps

But on the call Iger acknowledged such deals aren’t forever. Meanwhile, standalone subscription apps are already here, and we can be sure more are coming. HBO Now, which is owned by Time Warner, has the potential to build a very real audience without, say, Comcast or Verizon. The Disney-21st Century Fox-Comcast–owned Hulu serves up a suite of up-to-date shows. The content is what consumers want—and, as Iger points out, we all want the best user experience. If apps can serve our needs better, then apps seem to be what we want. Traditional TV might not go away, but media giants can’t depend on the old ways alone.

and the new Apple TV brings an app store

At the media event, the company also introduced a Siri-enabled remote with touch sensitive capabilities that will expand the platform’s gaming potential.

“We believe the future of TV is apps,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Apple said games like “Galaxy on Fire” and Walt Disney Co.’s new Star Wars game, “Disney Infinity,” would come to Apple TV. Popular real estate sites like AirBnB and Zillow also are developing apps that would allow big-screen house hunting.

Photo Credit

The Social Media Bowl: The Monday Morning Quarterback

Last week I posted on how the Super Bowl was actually more of the Social Media Bowl. A colleague described Twitter last night as the world's "biggest sports bar". 

Bluefin Labs provides an analysis of social media chatter last night such as the fact that David Beckham trumped Clint Eastwood and otherads as in photo below.

Jeremiah Owyang and his colleagues at Altimeter provide commentary on integration between the commercials with social, mobile and web brands including

• Brands Heavily Invested in Promoting Traditional Websites
• Surprisingly, Many Did Not Promote a Call-To-Action
• Only a Sixth of Ads Explicitly Promoted Social Media
• Hashtag Marketing Emerged to Stimulate Continual Engagement
• Cutting Edge Marketers Teased with New Marketing Tactics, including Shazam