snapshot 11/16/07

CES: Home entertainment's future is interface, not hardware
The Consumer Electronics Association held a press event in New York this week where its members demonstrated the products that they hope to sell over the holidays and early next year. In looking at some of the demos, one of the things that became apparent is how entertainment devices seem to be converging on a single approach to media management. Two companies displayed hardware/software combinations for managing digital media through the television that demonstrated the point nicely: despite radically different hardware, both devices' software and capabilities wound up looking remarkably similar. Together, they suggest that the future of home entertainment is going to look a lot like Microsoft's Media Center or the Apple TV, but it may minimize the need for a computer.


iTuneski for films challenges Hollywood
A Russian movie download site is looking to undercut Western services with cheap film downloads at typical prices of about $2.99. ZML.com, which describes itself as a movie library, offers around 1,500 titles without copy protection. Customers can burn downloaded content onto DVDs. Titles on offer include summer blockbusters such as Spider Man 3 and 300, as well as older classics such as Apocalypse Now. Depending on quality, downloads cost from $1.99 (iPod quality) to $4.99 (DVD quality, 2.1GB movie files).


Musictoday Launches Web Store Application for Facebook(R) Pages
Musictoday, LLC, a leading provider of ecommerce solutions for music artists, today announced the launch of a Web store application on the Facebook Platformthat enables artists with Facebook Pages to sell merchandise directly to their fans through their Facebook Pages. Facebook Pages, which was launchedlast week, allows fans to interact and affiliate with artists in the same way they interact with other user profiles on Facebook Platform.


J Allard: The Failures of the Zune and the Record Labels
When I spoke to Mr. Allard, he was up front about Microsoft’s slow start. But he defended the approach of “fail fast” and learn. And in typical Microsoft fashion, he talked about the first generations of Zune as early moves in a long-term strategy. (That Xbox actually has become successful, unlike many recent Microsoft efforts, bolsters his credibility on this somewhat.)


The Connected Home—Disconnected
Sonos joins a growing list of systems, such as Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and TiVo HD, that can pull content off the Net without a PC.


TuneCore offers iTunes Music Video sales
Earlier this year, I posted about TuneCore, a service that allows you to sell your music on iTunes. Now TuneCore has given us the heads up that the service has expanded to include Music Video sales. You can upload your music videos to iTunes and sell them alongside all the normal music labels. Selling your music video is kinda pricey. Expect to pay $125 plus $20/year for a 5 minute-or-less video. Compare that with the $20 you'd pay to upload an album with eight tracks that I priced out in my original post.


J Allard: Microsoft’s Plan to Be King of All Media
The most significant thing he talked about was the way the company is building an online service that will be the back end for all sorts of communication and entertainment. Xbox Live, the rather successful online aspect of Microsoft’s video game franchise, uses the same back end as the far less successful online service for Zune. Indeed, users get one account for both.

This service will at some point add more options for video and mobile phones, Mr. Allard said, without offering details. Actually, Microsoft has been quite successful selling video downloads and online movie rentals through the Xbox Live service already.


Watermarking has its day
The Digital Watermarking Alliance held its first event Thursday, hosting a half-day symposium here to drum up interest in using digital watermarking and fingerprinting technology to manage and protect content.