Digital Lifestyle Girl's Place on the Web

There are other consumer technologies doing remarkably well

In a month which has the press fixated on Apple, Facebook and Sling, Sony has refreshed the PSP and is doing remarkably well, selling a quarter million PSPs in just four days.  This beats Apple iPhone opening weekend numbers, by most accounts.

Way to go, Sony!

New new PSP is lighter, thinner, smaller, and has TiVo to Go and MoTV through T-mobile.  Pretty cool new multimedia capabilities, but it still relies on UMD for games and movies, despite two years of rumor of moving to a hard drive or flash-based system.  It seems Sony is inching along to ditching reliance on UMD for this device, at least moving in the right direction. 

It would be fun to play with the new features.  For many users, PSP has been at least as cool for video and wireless as it has been for gaming, and Sony seems to be acknowledging that niche.  It's also great for pinball and pac-man :-)

Link: Sony sells 250,000 new PSPs in four days | CNET News.com.

My favorite startup, Sling Media, acquired by EchoStar

I knew Sling Media was a potential acquisition target, probably courted by bigger hardware companies such as Cisco, HP, Dell and Apple, service providers like Direct, Comcast, and AT&T, alternative service providers like Google, Yahoo!, and Joost, and harder to classify giants, such as Microsoft.  Or, maybe an interesting TiVo, Sling, other small company hybrid created through a unique financial agreement.

If I had bet money, I would have predicted:

1. an IPO

2. a longer time to exit

3. if no IPO, a different partner, actually any of those listed above as more likely than EchoStar

At a enormous $380M price tag, this was no rushed fire sale.  The delay and slight redefinition of SlingPlayer has not been a positive for the company, but it's not a tragic fumble, and could not possibly forced this choice.

So why now, why EchoStar, and what (most critically) will happen next?

I've always pondered if Sling-like functionality would ultimately be sucked into set-top boxes (and the PC), becoming a feature and not remain a standalone technology.  To me, that suggested a potential IP play in the long term for Sling, which theoretically could spread the great technology to the masses.  In fact, Sling was working heavily with MSOs to distribute the technology, but will MSOs wish to work so closely with a major competitor?  In a rapidly evolving service provider industry, with every company fighting for new customers by providing killer apps, why would they work with Echo?

Now, will only the masses that subscribe to EchoStar (which offers Dish), the smaller of the two US satellite companies, get built in Sling?  Mind you, I do not know what EchoStar will do (I am not sure they do, either)--will it make the functionality available only to its clients, will it still sell the Slingbox, will it become a licensor to others?  Will EchoStar support the range of set-top boxes which TiVo now supports, like my DirectTV, or is MY Slingbox going to turn into an obsolete brick at some point?

The worst outcome is the walled gardening of Sling, if the technology becomes available only to EchoStar subscribers, and the masses miss out on getting access to this cool media serving functionality.  Of course, competitors, such as Monsoon, are probably happy dancing this morning, hoping to make a big break.

The satellite guys are in a terrible position in the new world order, with no straightforward back channel to provide the new wave of IP-esque services which consumers may want (VoD being the obvious one).  They do have bandwidth, and with that, the ability to provide a lot of HD.  But they need more, so I can see why Slinging is interesting to them.  But why would Sling be interested?  I just don't know.

As a startup fan, a true entrepreneur at heart, it's always a mixed bag for me to see a company be bought.  I am certainly happy for my friends at Sling, but I do wonder what this means to innovation and the spread of technology.  Has it become impossible to be a startup vendor of amazing technology?  If so, this is a true blow to consumer electronics innovation.

Consumer Semi Girl Falls in Love (with a TV)

Due to my role analyzing the underlying technology of consumer products, and perhaps due to the aura of geekiness around me, the two most frequent questions asked of me are:  "so what do you think of the new Apple iXxx" and "what digital TV should I buy?"

Talking about the latest Apple product is fine, it helps pays the bills, but the comments sound repetitive over time.  "Pushed the industrial design envelope"  "Did not push the density curve"  "Could have..."  Lately, the same comments fit all the portable devices, so there really is zero original thinking each time, on my part (plenty on Apple's).  The iPhone at first provided much fodder, but new fodder will likely be generations in the making.

On the other hand, talking about the TV you should buy is more fun.  There are so many choices, so many price bands, brands, sizes, technologies, features.  It's fun to take people down the decision tree:  primary or secondary?  do you watch a lot of sports?  how is the room lit?  what is your primary source material?  And so on. 

However, being deeply cynical at times, I have cautioned people to wait on replacing their primary TV with a new digital TV, especially if someone wanted a TV above 32 inches, especially if they wanted LCD (to add a wrinkle, I always suggested they buy LCD, since I don't like plasma or RP).  Above 32 inches, image processing flaws are accutely noticable, at least if you are like me and know what goes on behind the screen.  Also, bad contrast ratio, dead pixels, and so forth, just show up more clearly.  And few sets were doing 1080p until recently, also noticable on a larger screen, and also critical for future proofing the set.  So, I told people to buy nothing.

Ironically, if you were looking for a secondary TV or a small TV, I happily told you to buy anything that looked good, any silver box set at Costco, provided you like it, will do (taking care to avoid the worst of the worse brands).  Little screens show off big errors much less.

At the end of the day, this means the TV technology prognosticator kept a 20 year old CRT going strong.  What I wanted was an excellent image processing TV, "affordable" at 42 or 46 inches, and supporting 1080p.  Nothing doing, until...

Link: Exclusive: First Review of the Sony KDL-46XBR4 » HDGURU.Com.

Viola!  Meet my critically acclaimed new TV (which is so popular as to be sold out and on backorder, sniff, for another week).  Sony has been promoting its own silicon technology in the higher ends of the line...and the best technology by far is in the XBR series.  I have never seen an LCD TV like this.  Amazing contrast ratio.  Amazing motion adaptation.  Amazing artifact correction.  Great industrial design. 

I'll be back to review it soon.

The amazing Netflix vs. Blockbuster war

Link: Machinist: Tech Blog, Tech News, Technology Articles - Salon.

This is a story sure to cause fear in the hearts of all those 6.7M red envelope devotees, who have Pavlovian bursts of excitement, hundreds of rentals later, when they go to their mailbox. 

That's right, Blockbuster has managed to score 3.6M subscribers, and is on a massive month over month subscriber growth trajectory, up and to the right, while Netflix actually has a net loss month over month.  If things continue at the rate they are (Blockbuster may very well grow faster, and Netflix could really skid, accelerating this), the two companies may be very close to parity by the end of the year.

According to this article, the main reason Blockbuster is both stealing share and attracting greenfield customers is the retail arm.  Apparently, customers love being able to go to the store and instantly get a new movie, rather than wait for the mail.  Also, you can get more than the "n" movies per month offered in your plan, due to the generous number of times you can do the in person swap.  So, the per movie cost may be much lower.

I don't know about you, but I cut up my Blockbuster card years ago because I could not stand waiting in line, hunting through picked over movies (90% of which were, well, blockbusters I had no desire to watch), my fondness for picking and managing my movies in an extensive (around 400 movie) online queue, and frankly because of my sheer laziness.  Even if I suddenly desire a movie I don't have at home and won't get for---oooo---two days, I am not going to Blockbuster.

Of course, this race is not over, unless Netflix burns through too much cash while seeing it's share erode.  If nothing else, we can thank Blockbuster for educating and converting more people into online movie renters, which can strengthen Netflix in the long run.  The real race will occur when video on demand and/or online delivery really takes off (none of this limited selection of movies watchable only on the PC thing Netflix is doing now).  There are many issues to manage here, and likely years before we see the dust settle.

In the meanwhile, not to belittle the market, but both companies combined reach less than 10% of US households.  The entire online rental market, in all its current forms, is in its infancy, with much more to be written.