As an owner of Apple Stock, and someone who amazingly had bought some BEFORE the first ipod came out, I can attest to the recent stock price run-up that Apple has had. It went from a very low, 12 dollar a share stock at the time, to the $270 a share behemoth it is today. Alas, why did I not buy more than I did?
I recently came across a great chart, which compared the price of Apple products over the years, the price of those products, and what your earnings would be now if you had bought apple stock at that time, instead of that product.
If you bought an Apple PowerBook G3 250 (Original/Kanga/3500) in November of 1997, you spent around $5700. Today, that Powerbook is worth very little. BUT, if you spent that same $5300 on Apple stock at the time, it would now be worth $330563.38!
Read the rest of the chart here.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Cable Companies - "The fight has just begun"
As many know, I have recently given up my cable television subscription, and replaced it with faster internet access and a wideband connection from Timewarner. Cable television, with it's set times for viewing shows, and it's lousy DVR and HD that never seemed to work right, had worn out its welcome at my house.
Sadly, my dreams of watching all of my shows on the internet, like I do now, may not last forever. Because where there's money to be made, don't doubt there will be someone there to make it.
That someone is the cable companies themselves, who, fearing the flight of people just like myself to the World Wide Watching Web of online viewing, are preparing the next round in the fight for my eyeballs. A recent article in Businessweek discusses "TV Everywhere", in which "viewers can watch shows for free, but only if they're cable subscribers first. In other words, as long as you tap a subscription code into your device—any device—you can watch anything you want, whenever you want."
Uh-oh.
Already, HBO has been trying out this format in a few select cities, and found that people who were already paying for HBO, and got access to watch shows online, didn't spend any less time watching HBO on TV than on their laptops. Time Warner executives and Comcast executives began to meet, and dream up a new model where cable companies would create this new model...as long as you could confirm that you were a cable subscriber, you'd get access to all of the same channels and shows online. The model would use the existing infrastructures and establish interfaces.
Initial concerns and issues would be that the rest of industry would have to sign up for this model...meaning, the rest of pay TV and content providers would have to join up with the cable companies. And while it seems impossible, never estimate the amount of clout, and money, that the large cable companies control and have at their disposal.
While both companies were on board, on large disagreement between the strange marriage of Comcast and Time Warner was how to go about this...create one portal online site where all users would go to get their content? Or let the studios keep their own sites...like abc.com, nbc.com, etc. They agreed to the latter, and began the grand experiment of trying to woe the studios.
Apparently, the studios and content providers are eager to play ball...while upstarts like hulu.com and other such sites are showing new shows a day or two after, they aren't really making large amounts of money for the studios...and far less for cable companies. And with the cable companies begin the largest customers of content, studios are less inclined to move towards working with start-ups that are competitors to their big money clients - time warner , comcast, verizon, and directTv.
The race has begun before we've even started. Last year, Comcast began testing out Fancast XFinity TV, which follows the TV everywhere model. Only subscribers to who pay for digital cable and broadband service from Comcast are eligible. Says the article, "Subscribers can tune into two dozen channels, from CBS to Animal Planet, and view 19,000 full-length TV shows and movies. They can use it on as many as three PCs and get most episodes 24 hours after they first air on TV. Much of that was available on Comcast's free site, but now shows on HBO and the Discovery channel have been added to the lineup."
So what does this mean for us as internet TV viewers? Well, the countdown clock is ticking. With the cable companies intent on keeping their cable subscription profits intact, and the tv studios and industry eager to please their largest paying customers, it looks like an unholy marriage is forming that will one day wipe out the hulu.com's on the online world. If all the content is funneled into one online source that you can only get access to by having a cable subscription already, what will this due to the rapidly shrinking TV audience, and the notion of "free online content". Is it really "Free" if we are paying for Time Warner's internet service?
In the end, I feel that TV needs to become MORE like the internet in order to survive. Already, Verizon Fios is going that route, making their digital cable service more like that internet in that you can watch TV, use Facebook, check weather, and Twitter on your TV without changing the channel. Also, cable television should become more customizable. Do we really need 700 channels? I personally only watched about 10 or so, and would happily pay about $10 a month to get only those.
Read the whole article at Businessweek
Sadly, my dreams of watching all of my shows on the internet, like I do now, may not last forever. Because where there's money to be made, don't doubt there will be someone there to make it.
That someone is the cable companies themselves, who, fearing the flight of people just like myself to the World Wide Watching Web of online viewing, are preparing the next round in the fight for my eyeballs. A recent article in Businessweek discusses "TV Everywhere", in which "viewers can watch shows for free, but only if they're cable subscribers first. In other words, as long as you tap a subscription code into your device—any device—you can watch anything you want, whenever you want."
Uh-oh.
Already, HBO has been trying out this format in a few select cities, and found that people who were already paying for HBO, and got access to watch shows online, didn't spend any less time watching HBO on TV than on their laptops. Time Warner executives and Comcast executives began to meet, and dream up a new model where cable companies would create this new model...as long as you could confirm that you were a cable subscriber, you'd get access to all of the same channels and shows online. The model would use the existing infrastructures and establish interfaces.
Initial concerns and issues would be that the rest of industry would have to sign up for this model...meaning, the rest of pay TV and content providers would have to join up with the cable companies. And while it seems impossible, never estimate the amount of clout, and money, that the large cable companies control and have at their disposal.
While both companies were on board, on large disagreement between the strange marriage of Comcast and Time Warner was how to go about this...create one portal online site where all users would go to get their content? Or let the studios keep their own sites...like abc.com, nbc.com, etc. They agreed to the latter, and began the grand experiment of trying to woe the studios.
Apparently, the studios and content providers are eager to play ball...while upstarts like hulu.com and other such sites are showing new shows a day or two after, they aren't really making large amounts of money for the studios...and far less for cable companies. And with the cable companies begin the largest customers of content, studios are less inclined to move towards working with start-ups that are competitors to their big money clients - time warner , comcast, verizon, and directTv.
The race has begun before we've even started. Last year, Comcast began testing out Fancast XFinity TV, which follows the TV everywhere model. Only subscribers to who pay for digital cable and broadband service from Comcast are eligible. Says the article, "Subscribers can tune into two dozen channels, from CBS to Animal Planet, and view 19,000 full-length TV shows and movies. They can use it on as many as three PCs and get most episodes 24 hours after they first air on TV. Much of that was available on Comcast's free site, but now shows on HBO and the Discovery channel have been added to the lineup."
So what does this mean for us as internet TV viewers? Well, the countdown clock is ticking. With the cable companies intent on keeping their cable subscription profits intact, and the tv studios and industry eager to please their largest paying customers, it looks like an unholy marriage is forming that will one day wipe out the hulu.com's on the online world. If all the content is funneled into one online source that you can only get access to by having a cable subscription already, what will this due to the rapidly shrinking TV audience, and the notion of "free online content". Is it really "Free" if we are paying for Time Warner's internet service?
In the end, I feel that TV needs to become MORE like the internet in order to survive. Already, Verizon Fios is going that route, making their digital cable service more like that internet in that you can watch TV, use Facebook, check weather, and Twitter on your TV without changing the channel. Also, cable television should become more customizable. Do we really need 700 channels? I personally only watched about 10 or so, and would happily pay about $10 a month to get only those.
Read the whole article at Businessweek
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Ford's MyTouch system - Driving dream, or dangerous distraction?
I recently read about the Ford MyTouch system, which seems to be the first well-thought out, visually appealing control system for a new generation of tweeting, mp3ing, and well-connected drivers. While cars have been adding in ipod inputs, in-car phone systems, and other piece-meal navigational accessories over the past few years, Ford (in partnership with Microsoft) have launch the first 2.0, all-encompassing salvo into the arena. And with safety as the number one issue when surrounded by all of this in-car gadgetry, the MyTouch is making its best attempt to solve the problems.
The Mytouch system consists of 3 LCD screens, a left hand wheel controller much like an ipod's interface, and a visual system that relies on mainly colors, rather than hard to read text commands. The main touchscreen will have a full tabbed internet browser, a USB to connect a keyboard, and text-to-voice readers - all while in park.
As I driver, I would welcome many of these items...not even for myself, but for a passenger who may be able to interact with a browser to find something we are looking for without a smartphone. But I wonder, how much is too much? How easy will it be to use while driving, and even more importantly, how safe would it be to use while driving?
Read the rest of the article at Popular Mechanics
Saturday, April 3, 2010
The Ubiquitous Marketing of the Ipad...and the next phase of Television marketing.
Well, the Ipad is here...and if you didn't know it yet, you may have to crawl out from under that rock you are under. From tech blogs, to newspapers, and to possibly every magazine coming out this week, the Ipad has either graced the cover, been a featured article, or gotten some sort of mention.
But it hasn't stopped there, and I can't tell who is pulling the strings...is it Apple, who has the clout and money to put their product into every media nook-and-cranny they can find? Or is it media itself, that can't get enough of touting Apple's products, featuring them in cameos and leading roles, and gushing all over themselves anytime they get a chance to pay homage? Or is this really a cultural phenomenon, worthy of all of the attention it's getting?
My personal magazine subscriptions have featured Steve Jobs on the cover of Time this week, the ipad on the cover of Wired, and even Businessweek hoisting up the tagline, "Yet another iPad article? Oh Yes".
But the most egregious iPad "iPandering" was reserved for television, where product placement has morphed slowly over the years into Product Synergy, and where companies and products have turned into integral parts, or even characters, in episode plots.
And while I fully expect this type of Apple-love from the likes of Stephen Colbert (who has been begging Apple for one for weeks to get an ipod), it was ABC's Modern Family that really tipped the scales.
A quite funny show in its own right, Modern Family stooped (or rose) to a strange, new marketing level by making the iPad a central part of the latest episode's plot. And while it's one thing to have an "Apple laptop here, or an iPod there"in a shot, the entire show revolved around the main character's desire to acquire an iPad on his birthday. The comedic situations were tied to searching out an iPad, waiting in line for it, and finally getting one...and blowing out a virtual "birthday cake" on it.
To be fair, the shows' father has been cast already as a "tech geek" and a character whose written arch would warrant that he would want an iPad. But by using him in a comedic way, and having him saying catch phrases like, "Get ready to begin the first day of the rest of your life", are we really laughing with this...or is Apple laughing at us.
One of the first examples I saw of this type of marketing was on a cartoon series called Aqua Teen Hunger Force...in which they created a whole episode around the company Boost Mobile, which is a cell phone provider. While the cartoon is irreverent and borders on actually making fun of the product, the message and the brand gets across...and even gets some "hip points" for being on a cool, adult cartoon show. In this early incarnation, the product has to be ready to get skewered by the show...is it worth it? Probably!
Aqua Teen Hunger Force / Boost Mobile from NX STUDIOS on Vimeo.
Another cartoon series to take this marketing style was Frisky Dingo, in a hilarious spoof of Regis and Kathy Lee, promoting the new Scion car...and continually interrupting the main antagonist with their shameless promotion. Scion was involved in this and greenlit everything that came with being a part of the Frisky Dingo style of comedy:
They even acknowledged it themselves on the cartoon:
But it hasn't stopped there, and I can't tell who is pulling the strings...is it Apple, who has the clout and money to put their product into every media nook-and-cranny they can find? Or is it media itself, that can't get enough of touting Apple's products, featuring them in cameos and leading roles, and gushing all over themselves anytime they get a chance to pay homage? Or is this really a cultural phenomenon, worthy of all of the attention it's getting?
My personal magazine subscriptions have featured Steve Jobs on the cover of Time this week, the ipad on the cover of Wired, and even Businessweek hoisting up the tagline, "Yet another iPad article? Oh Yes".
But the most egregious iPad "iPandering" was reserved for television, where product placement has morphed slowly over the years into Product Synergy, and where companies and products have turned into integral parts, or even characters, in episode plots.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Stephen Gets a Free iPad | ||||
| ||||
And while I fully expect this type of Apple-love from the likes of Stephen Colbert (who has been begging Apple for one for weeks to get an ipod), it was ABC's Modern Family that really tipped the scales.
A quite funny show in its own right, Modern Family stooped (or rose) to a strange, new marketing level by making the iPad a central part of the latest episode's plot. And while it's one thing to have an "Apple laptop here, or an iPod there"in a shot, the entire show revolved around the main character's desire to acquire an iPad on his birthday. The comedic situations were tied to searching out an iPad, waiting in line for it, and finally getting one...and blowing out a virtual "birthday cake" on it.
To be fair, the shows' father has been cast already as a "tech geek" and a character whose written arch would warrant that he would want an iPad. But by using him in a comedic way, and having him saying catch phrases like, "Get ready to begin the first day of the rest of your life", are we really laughing with this...or is Apple laughing at us.
One of the first examples I saw of this type of marketing was on a cartoon series called Aqua Teen Hunger Force...in which they created a whole episode around the company Boost Mobile, which is a cell phone provider. While the cartoon is irreverent and borders on actually making fun of the product, the message and the brand gets across...and even gets some "hip points" for being on a cool, adult cartoon show. In this early incarnation, the product has to be ready to get skewered by the show...is it worth it? Probably!
Aqua Teen Hunger Force / Boost Mobile from NX STUDIOS on Vimeo.
Another cartoon series to take this marketing style was Frisky Dingo, in a hilarious spoof of Regis and Kathy Lee, promoting the new Scion car...and continually interrupting the main antagonist with their shameless promotion. Scion was involved in this and greenlit everything that came with being a part of the Frisky Dingo style of comedy:
They even acknowledged it themselves on the cartoon:
Friday, April 2, 2010
Storyboard03 Revised
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Storyboard03 Revised
View more presentations from raymancini.
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