Indie Telco Local Content Workshop advertisement
THE VIODI VIEW
by Ken Pyle
In this Issue: Let the Show Begin, Yes to Video & More...
February 19th, 2004 Issue
Never having a talent for anything, other than watching other people do cool things, I always dreamed of touring the country in a rock n’ roll band. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance to travel with Paradyne and Cisco and others in their spring, 2004 IP Video Seminar series. Its my chance to pretend I am on a rock and roll tour. This trek has me going to 11 cities over the next two months, starting yesterday. Click here to learn more.
You Heard It Here First
Unless, you got an email from Peter Lowten ([email protected]) or read today’s San Jose Mercury News, that is. The “it” is a new broadband television service offering that will launch from a company called Akimbo later this year. Their service combines the bandwidth of a broadband connection, the compression and DRM of Microsoft Windows Media 9 and the storage of digital video recorder to create a potentially disruptive IPTV offering.
According to the company’s press release, the set-top, available later this year, will retail for $199 with a basic service price of $9.99 per month. They purportedly have deals with 23 niche networks, including CinemaNow. There are a number of other efforts like this in the works from other organizations, which Viodi will report about in the near future. This approach to IPTV has the potential to do to traditional video what VoIP is threatening to do to traditional circuit switched telephony.
By the way, club viodi members actually did get a chance to read this concept here first. Last summer Viodi posted a white paper to the club.viodi.com site suggesting that telcos could provide this exact sort of service.
Needless to say, there are more conferences and workshops than days of the weeks. Of course, it is difficult to get to all of these confabs. That’s why there is the Viodi View. We attempt to report on the conferences that an independent telco might not otherwise get to, but would find of great interest. We also are involved in producing several conferences and documenting them through the creation of interactive CD-ROMs. In the next four months, our conference participation is book ended by USTA. Next week, we are moderating a USTA webinar and, in June, we are producing a telco video content conference with USTA at Supercomm. Click here to learn more about these upcoming events.
How many of you out there have boxes of home videos that just sit there, waiting to be viewed? Or, maybe you have promised yourself that one day you would archive and convert these precious memories to DVD, but never seem to find the time. I recently ran across a Silicon Valley-based company that will take those old home movies and convert them to DVD format. More than just a conversion to digital, their software detects scene changes and intelligently places 54 chapter marks. Click here to learn more about this service.
But, if you want to understand what this has to do with independent telcos, you will have to attend the local content workshop. To vote for what city we will be taking the local content conference to next, please click here.
The Korner: A New Model?
I was somewhat devastated when I heard last week that Ken and Barbie were, and I quote CNN.com, “splitsville”. Besides being a namesake, people have drawn many comparisons between me and the Ken-doll. We have both been described as being pretty stiff, plastic, and lucky to have such a beautiful wife/girlfriend. Plus, during the Clinton years, I was once the center of a minor scandal involving a Barbie doll.
And just like Barbie apparently needed a new model, my wife and many others have been asking, “what is Viodi’s model?” It took me awhile to figure out that they weren’t talking Twiggy, and were talking about a business model. Our model starts with the mission, which is to:
Be the Independent Telco’s voice to “Hollywood” and beyond
Communication is a vital part of fulfilling that mission. The online version of the Viodi View has been one tool that we have used for communication. I have been very pleased with the number of new subscribers that seem to find us through various search engines. At the same time, we are fighting to stay out of spam filters (this is probably worthy of another article, at some point in the near-future).
One way to fight this is to take an apparent step back and move to a paper version. Obviously, the downside to this is that there will be some more costs, which will most likely mean shifting our model from a completely “free” newsletter to one in which we will be charging a nominal amount. The upside is it will give you more material to line your bird cages. We will keep you posted. In the meantime, we always look forward to feedback.
To sponsor the Viodi View, please send an email to [email protected].Please forward this free publication to anyone you know who is involved in some way with independent telephone companies.
Mission of the Viodi View:
In this on-line publication, we share our analysis, opinions and direction on the interactive television news and views that we believe will be of interest and use to our friends associated directly or indirectly with independent telephone companies. For more information on Viodi's efforts to unite the independent telephone company's interactive television efforts, please send an email to [email protected].
Disclaimer:
The Viodi View [Viodi, LLC] and its associates used their best efforts in collecting and preparing the information published herein. However, the Viodi View [Viodi, LLC] does not assume, and hereby disclaims, any and all liability for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions resulted from negligence, accident, or other causes.
All displayed trademarks, logos and service marks are the property of their respective owners. © 2004 Viodi, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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