Today's Wall Street Journal carried stories covering the entry of two more companies into online video distribution.
Verizon, in the midst of spending tens of billions of dollars to wire its major markets for high-speed video, is now entering into an agreement to redistribute YouTube content onto its cellphones and television service. Microsoft's Xbox was announced as being capable, imminently, of downloading and playing video content from members of an entertainment consortium, into with which Microsoft has entered agreements.
I hesitate to say that either development is particularly earth-shaking. For Verizon, it's simply securing another third party video content source. Unless I'm mistaken, I can now go to YouTube myself with my cell phone. Searching it, however, would be a challenge. As for TV, I guess, armed with a wireless full typewriter-style keyboard remote, surfing YouTube would be feasible, but I won't be dropping Comcast for that.
Regarding Microsoft, again, it seems like a splinter market- online gaming youth. As my consultant friend S explained, the mostly male youth playing online games with their Xbox 360s won't be 'watching TV,' so now, a crawler can offer them deals on instant movie and other programming downloads. How large a revenue opportunity this will prove to be is beyond me, but it does provide some offset to iTunes.
Either way, I simply don't see these 'also ran' video content deals having significant impact on the total returns of either of these firms. They seem designed more to simply ante up in the race to provide ubiquitous video content access to digital device consumers.
As I sit here writing this, I find it hard to see myself extensively browsing the web with my cell phone. A Blackberry, perhaps. But in the same way that iPods and Xboxes are dedicated-application digital devices, perhaps so, too, will another evolve for wireless multi-media content viewing and communications. Everytime I read Walt Mossberg's Wall Street Journal reviews of such omnibus devices, they seem to be too bulky, clumsy, short on battery life, and missing some key feature in one of the modes- either browsing or communications.
More likely than not, the continued spread of inexpensive, or free, video content among wireless devices will, in a sort of constant iteration of device and content, lead to various new types of devices which stress one application or another, and, thus, appeal to distinct segments.
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