Netflix Proving Streaming More Important

A recent article from CE Magazine wrote about a study of the Netflix Price increase. While the numbers were by no means conclusive to the "Death of Netflix" there was one more interesting finding. That their users would keep their streaming service over the DVD delivery. From the article, According to TDG, "a dominant and growing percentage of Netflix subscribers" favor streaming video. "This is a significant finding,” says Greeson. “It suggests that, at least among dual-service subscribers, preferences have tipped to favor video streaming over physical discs. This was a central assumption behind Netflix’s risky decision to change prices at this time in the game.”

Mobile Video Growth

The New York Times has an Article on the dominance of Apple Devices viewing mobile video. While it is great to see that 80% of all mobile video viewing is being done on Apple devices, I was more interested in the statistic that FreeWheel reported in the article how only 1% of all online video is being consumed by mobile devices. This seems to be the number to watch. I think if we see a growth in "how" online video is consumed, more specifically, consumed on mobile devices this will be a very good measure of the "death" of the PC.

I thoroughly expect to see the numbers increase on mobile devices however, I think the "set top" and "embedded" players will mostly dominate the online video world within the next three years. The Netflix button on my Sony LCD TV is a lot more easier to use than starting my play station or AppleTV and as such it is used much more.

Future for students

I am attending SonicFoundry's Unleash user conference where they just showed the next version of their player for iPad. Given the proliferation of iPads in education this could be an interesting game changer in the way live and ondemand content is accessed by students.

I always thought access to the catalog on mobile devices with on-demand download was a good idea, but with the iPad and live streaming with HTML 5 we could see a whole new way to access online learning.

Recent Webcast with SonicFoundry

I recently worked with SonicFoundry to give a live webcast on Webcasting for the Enterprise: High-Quality Production for High-Profile Events and Execs. I covered Lockheed Martin’s unique model for producing high-production-value corporate webcasts eliminated fear of going live with executive webcasts, and led to logarithmic growth in webcast production over the last 5 years. You can access the webcast here.

Streaming Media West 2010

I will be speaking at Streaming Media West in November on the topics of streaming network trouble shooting and the future of enterprise webcasting. The second is a panel discussion which should be very interesting given the great panelists I have. If you would like to see my presentation from last year you can view it here.

iPhone vs. Storm update

I have found that the Blackberry Storm is not the best with apps that are not "business related". As an example I have tried Urbanspoon and Yelp on both platforms. The iPhone works extremely well. No issues with the interface or getting my position. The Storm has significant issues. Both apps cannot locate my position and urbanspoon's interface is missing graphics.

So far I cannot say that the Storm and iPhone are interchangable.

IPhone vs. Blackberry Storm

I am now the proud user of both an Apple iPhone and a Blackberry Storm 2. So I hope to give some insights about the two. The most difficult part of using both is getting used to the difference in the touch screens.

While the iPhone is touch only and you get familiar with the light touch needed to type the Storm uses touch as well as physical pressure. Once you put your finger on a letter it is selected but you have to "push" the screen to actually type. I have found myself a few times pressing the screen on the iPhone much harder then I need to because of this.

This feature on the Storm has it's benefits though. It allows you to first "select" what you want then "click" to activate the key or selection. I find I make less selection of wrong items in interfaces on the Storm because of this.