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Pattern Recognition: Dream Team dissage; Amazon the Assassin; Late Bloomers

My goal is to write one 'Pattern Recognition' a week. Just the top 3-4 stories that stayed under my skin. Here's what stuck this week:

  1. Kobe vs. Dream Team: Kobe Bryant decided to rally his 2012 Olympics teammates by suggesting that their team could beat the 1992 'Dream Team,' which is widely considered the most skilled, dominant Olympics team of all time. The response was predictable. Michael Jordan shredded Kobe. Magic Johnson retorted via twitter, "The 1992 Dream Team had 11 HOFs, 23 champ rings & the greatest player of all time in Jordan. No chance this years team would take us." But the best retort of all? Larry Legend (aka Larry Bird), who disarmed the whole thing, sagely noting, "They probably could (beat us). I haven't played in 20 years and we're all old now." Amen to that!
  2. Amazon's Same-Day Delivery: I have written previously about how retail needs a reboot, and how those retailers that can't differentiate in the age of Amazon-powered 'showrooming' will die. Well, the next game changer is coming, and it's same-day delivery, something this excellent Slate article argues will destroy local retail. Meanwhile, two nice bookend reads to this story were: A) Herb Greenberg ruminating on the question, 'Is Costco Broken?' It looks at how changing demographics coupled with Amazon slowly (but surely) moving into its turf are breaking the big box retailer; and B) How Amazon's platform strategy is the ultimate in co-opetition.
  3. Late Bloomer, not a Loser: Loud, brash, pompous and impassioned, Dave McClure is not an easy guy to figure out. Seemingly using little more than duct-tape, perpetual movement and a wee-smidgen of pedigree, he has willed himself into becoming a venture captitalist. If this sounds like I am dissing the guy, it's quite the opposite. Not everyone is born with a silver spoon in their mouth, joins the right fraternity or has the 'native' gift of the midas touch. Some (of us) have to climb steep mountains and get cut over and over again to get to a higher plateau.  Dave's heartfelt piece this week was a reminder of this truth, and put a big smile on my face. It was earnest, exposed and very real. Kudos.

July 13, 2012 in Amazon, Basketball, Coaching, Pattern Recognition, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Is Andy Rubin doubling-down on a losing hand with Android in Tablets?

Android-Double-Down

In noting that the 'educated consumer' now realizes that "they're either picking the Apple ecosystem or the Microsoft ecosystem or the Google ecosystem," Android chief, Andy Rubin, promises that Google will 'double down' on Android tablets in 2012.

But this begs the question. Why is Google losing the Tablet wars in the first place, and what should they do about it?

After all, they're doing just fine in the Smartphones segment, with 850,000 Android devices activated each day, and over 450,000 apps in the Android Market.

Yet, things are apparently so bleak that even the 'glass-is-half-full' optimist, Samsung, willingly acknowledges, "Honestly, we're not doing very well in the Tablet market."

Hows does one reconcile breakout success AND failure on essentially the same platform (albeit with different form-factors)?

Is it that better devices are needed? More compelling apps? A better marketing campaign? Or is it something else?

I'd argue that Google's struggles in Tablets is a classic case of the chickens coming home to roost. Thus, it's worth spending a couple minutes on what exactly those 'chickens' are:

  1. A Less than the Sum of the Parts Platform: The downside of Google's hard push of an open, loosely coupled web that is 'free' (i.e., ad-supported) is that it diminishes the importance of native, well-integrated apps for which consumers are willing to pay money. It's a truism to the point of self-fulfilling prophecy that while iOS device owners love-Love-LOVE their apps, Android device owners are more likely to plainly state that they "don't really use apps that much." As such, savvy developers look past the Android numbers, and see fragmentation, monetization and consumer mindset challenges, and focus their best efforts on iOS.
  2. Confusing the Tail with the Dog: While there's a tendency to see the Android vs. iOS story as a case where one vendor creates a hardware-independent standard to achieve ubiquity on the backs of hardware OEMs (ala Windows vs. Mac), the core truth in Smartphones is that this is a market driven by: A) the power of carrier push (i.e., you can only buy what the carrier sells); B) the power of subsidy (i.e., carriers have trained consumers to ignore the real price of the phone and focus on the price after carrier-subsidy); and C) upselling Feature Phone customers to Smartphones. In other words, the success of Android is less about anything magical that Google has created from a software perspective, and more about enabling an established channel (carriers and handset makers) with proven market demand. As we shall see, when applied to the Tablet segment, it's akin to the kid who was born on third base, and thought he'd hit a triple.
  3. The End-Run Around Intellectual Property: Let's face it. What many of us love about Google is that is has realized much of its vision to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. The downside is that in doing so, it has run roughshod over the intellectual property rights of content owners, social networks and especially media companies. This has created a dynamic where the very companies that Google needs as motivated partners if it intends to achieve parity with Apple's iTunes media universe of Music, Movies, TV shows and Books, look askance at the company when it comes time to content licensing. Thus, it's little surprise that despite the iPod media player being the core seed from which both the iPhone and iPad sprang, there is still no serious name brand, Android-based competior to iPod touch.

Hence, when you boil this down, what you are left with is the following:

One, is that unlike the Smartphone space where there is clear mission-criticality and a carrier controlling access to and pricing control (via subsidy), with Tablets there is NO table-stakes per se, because Tablets are not mission-critical devices.

iPad is winning in Tablets simply because Apple created and cultivated the demand for a device that offers a superior media experience, and a superior environment for games and other apps.

No less important, Apple built iTunes and App Store specifically with the goal of providing consumers with a curated, trusted environment for loading up on music, apps, movies, books and the like, complete with a friction-free monetization and distibution path for same. 

That's now the bar for entrance to the Tablet party, and any device that does less, had either better be focused on doing one thing well (e.g., Nook) or offering 'comparable' functionality at a much-lower price point, which is what Amazon is doing by tying Kindle Fire to both Amazon.com and Amazon Prime.

In other words, whereas Smartphones are driven by their mission-critical nature, and carrier "push," Tablets are driven by consumer "pull," and there is very little pull for a device that lacks an iTunes equivalent, killer apps, and a friction-free marketplace model.

Simply put, the successful tablet device makers (iPad, Kindle Fire, Nook) all have nailed the media side of the equation - music, movies, books and TV shows.

Until Google gets this piece right, I think they'll struggle, in and above all of the challenges that they face on the segmentation side.

Moreover, one is right to be dubious that the media players will play ball with Google, given how fully the company has tried to end-run their IP over the years.

In this light, it's unsurprising that Google Music has struggled to gain traction in the market.

Related:

  1. Android: On Inevitability, the Dawn of Mobile and the Missing Leg (O'Reilly)
  2. You say you want a revolution? It's called Post-PC computing (O'Reilly)
  3. Amazon's Prime Strategy with Kindle Fire (O'Reilly)
  4. Five Reasons Android vs. iOS is not Windows vs. Mac (O'Reilly)
  5. Apple's segmentation strategy, and the folly of conventional wisdom (O'Reilly)

February 28, 2012 in Amazon, Android, Apple, iOS, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

ANALYSIS: Retail needs a 'reboot' to survive (My latest @GigaOM)

“Customers will not pay literally a penny more than the true value of the product” — Ron Johnson, former senior vice president, Apple Retail, and J. C. Penney’s new CEO

Profit margins of Wal-Mart, Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Home Depot and Apple over the past decade.

While some may view the wholesale destruction of numerous brick-and-mortar segments as inevitable, we all have a vested interest in seeing the retail industry reboot itself for the modern age. Because as Main Street goes, so does America.

This is no mere platitude when you consider that 13.3 percent of all jobs in the U.S. are in retail (that’s 14.7 million jobs in all, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics), and retail is deeply tied to consumer spending, the same spending bracket that accounts for two-thirds of the U.S. economy. This doesn’t even factor in the natural synergy between our domestic manufacturing base and Main Street retail as a sales channel for that base.

Read the full piece at GigaOM, and let me know what you think.

UPDATE: There's a nice write up in the San Francisco Chronicle on The Candy Store, one of the mini in-store boutiques that Target is featuring as part of their store-within-a-store strategy. I really like these guys. Great products, and nice operators.

Related:

  1. Assessing the Internet: Great Creator or Better Destroyer? (GigaOM)
  2. The Great Reset: Why Tomorrow May Not be Better than Today (O'Reilly)
  3. Pattern Recognition: Makers, Marketplaces and the Library of the Commons
  4. Apple's Segmentation Strategy, and the Folly of Conventional Wisdom (O'Reilly)

 

February 27, 2012 in Amazon, Apple, Investing, Retailing, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

The Apple Education Event: Can you say Halo Effect?

Apple-Ed-Event

Only Apple could take on the educational textbook business, an industry seemingly frozen in the 1950’s, where three gorillas dominate 90% of the market, and credibly expect to win.

Then again, only Apple has the moxie and constitution to re-think the entire textbook value chain from device to development tool; from online marketplace to bricks-and-mortar, and into the classroom.

That Apple today simultaneously launched a new interactive book authoring tool, an updated online bookstore and a new platform for creating, instigating and managing online courses is…let’s face it…so very Apple-like.

This is what they do. Build great tools that only run on the Mac, that tie into a software platform that seamlessly integrates into their three flavors of ‘iDevices’ (i.e., iPod touch, iPhone and iPad), and that feeds into an iTunes + iCloud universe, which is the axis point for Music, Movies, TV shows, Books, Apps and Personal Media, not to mention 250M credit card-backed iTunes accounts.

I mean, this is the definition of a ‘Halo Effect,’ right? Every thing that the company does reinforces everything that the company does, and every new initiative builds upon this advantage, in the process creating new advantages in terms of brand, market penetration and, most importantly, mindshare.

It’s almost Microsoft-like (back in the days when the PC ruled the roost); namely, that there is an air of inevitability, that through the Apple approach, which is all about focus, rigor, integration, leverage, derivation and optimization, that when Apple decides to attack, they are destined to win. (To be clear, though, Apple winning does not mean that everyone else must lose.)

In fact, one great irony is how until recently, the conventional wisdom was that Apple couldn’t win with this type of vertically focused approach, and that Google’s aping of the Microsoft horizontal model was destined to prevail.

Why Apple’s Approach to Textbooks is Credible

In pointing their attention at the textbook, Apple does so with several tremendous advantages. One is the simple fact that education is a core part of the company’s DNA, Apple having built their initial education beachhead in the mid-1980s with the Apple IIGS in K-12, and later on, with the Mac in higher education.

In fact, beyond Apple’s strong Mac presence in education, there are now more than 1.5 million iPads used in schools, over 20,00 education and learning apps built for the iPad, and over 1000 universities using Apple’s free online lectures archive, iTunes U.

Two is the basic truth that the ethos of a lightweight device whose battery lasts all day, that is durable, richly interactive, loaded up with compelling content, highly customizable, and equally critical, which is coveted by the ultimate end-user of the device (the iPad was the number one coveted device by teens over the holidays), is iPad all the way.

After all, it’s not like there is some other device that is even remotely in the ballpark in terms of units sold, developer adoption or customer embrace.

Three is the fact that in targeting the textbook arena, Apple was cognizant of the ‘core jobs’ that they’d need to address to be successful; namely:

  1. Making it easy to create the textbooks themselves;
  2. Extending the concept of a textbook to be visually elegant and meaningfully interactive;
  3. Nailing the information management side by making textbooks readily searchable, and cross-linkable between the table of contents, the text body and the glossary terms;
  4. Enhancing the study side of the equation by making notation and highlighting very easy, and conversion of same into study cards in a single click.

So, in the big picture, how do I read what Apple is doing? Number one, they are changing the rules of the game for a company like Amazon, which has a credible hope of competing in this space, given the success of Kindle.

Thus, by providing an enhanced ebook experience, and the tools to create it (something I suggested that Apple would do back in 2009), Apple is laying down the gauntlet.

If Amazon wants to compete, they either need to up their game by building tools and forking more heavily away from Android, or they need to focus on being the best low-end and/or single-purpose solution.

They simply are not going to succeed going toe-to-toe with Apple in segments where being best-of-breed and scalable matters.

As to Google, given the fact that the Android Market still has a confused relationship with customer billing, that the platform still does not support in-app purchasing, and the company’s seeming inability to launch a credible alternative to iTunes, the Android-based tablet business remains best suited for folks who want to surf the web while on the potty.

Moreover, in turning iTunes U into a courseware platform, Apple is basically taking the end-to-end problem of online course logistics, and solving it by enabling instructors to create full-fledged courses that incorporate a syllabus, document assignments, and which build a new type of courseware ‘bundle’ that is a composite of iBooks, Apps, Audio, Videos, Documents and iTunes U lectures.

Plus, because it’s deeply integrated with the new iBooks, a professor can reference a specific page in an assignment, and by clicking on the reference, the app will take the user to the specific content section, be it a reading passage, a video, an interactive element, or even a custom note within a reading passage.

Finally, because the courseware ‘envelope’ is bounded by a new iTunes U app, teachers can post messages and update assignments, and students can mark the assignment as completed when done.

Personally, there’s more than a little irony that the same company the rebooted the music business by unbundling the single from the CD package is now looking to reboot the education business by bundling apps and media into courseware. 

Related Notes:

  • The fact that iTunes U, which was previously limited to college courses, is now going to support K-12, is a big win for underfunded school districts, not to mention, homeschoolers, a rapidly growing segment.
  • iTunes U could see major uptake outside of the US since the service will be available in 123 countries. Given that iTunes U will drive ownership of both iPads and the underlying content and apps that make up a course, this initiative could end up catalyzing a lot of international growth for Apple in the months ahead.
  • The new iBooks model further muddies the already fuzzy boundaries between iBooks and Book Apps. Book Apps are clearly more dynamic and functionally rich than iBooks, but they are also more expensive to produce, and equally vexing, whereas Apple has pushed to maintain higher price points on iBooks, with Book Apps, they have allowed the category to be subject to the same downward pricing pressures as ordinary apps.
  • By taking a leadership role in education, and coming off as deeply earnest about this being a core part of the company’s mission, Apple gets to counter attacks that they are a walled garden and a bully with the fact that in market after market, they are the hero of the consumer. I expect them to see continued brand uplift from this.
  • On the downside, serious questions have been raised by others about the EULA in iBooks Author, inasmuch as Apple is trying to handcuff the author’s ability to do what they want with the output of the tool, and potentially raising questions of who owns the 'output' that is generated by the tool, but crafted by the author. Needless to say, this is an aspect of Apple that, business logic notwithstanding, makes more than a few queasy.
  • It seems clear that many of these books will be 1 GB in size or larger, suggesting that the iPad of the not too distant future is going to need a lot more storage for education-oriented users.
  • What, no social? It’s hardly surprising that Apple opted not to incorporate social functions into the new iBooks, given their two left-feet in this domain, but it’s also a missed opportunity to enhance collaboration and shared learning efforts.

UPDATE: Fred Wilson is the best (i.e., I love the richness of his perspective, and how business and product strategies manifest in the real world), but it's hard to imagine him celebrating ANYTHING that Apple does, which makes his complete dismissal of Apple's efforts here unsurprising (see 'Textbook Cases').

Related:

  1. Holy Shit! Apple's Halo Effect
  2. Apple's Segmentation Strategy, and the Folly of Conventional Wisdom
  3. Rebooting the Book: One iPad at a Time
  4. Amazon's Prime Challenger to the iPad
  5. It’s Time to ‘Think Different’ - Conventional Wisdom is Dead (Apple’s Q1 Earnings Call)

January 20, 2012 in Amazon, Android, Apple, Books, Branding, Digital Media, Education, iOS, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

The Hypocrisy of Open: Google's silent treatment of Amazon Kindle Fire

Open
For a company that touts every milestone associated with the ascent of its Android platform (as they should);

That defends its refusal to ban 'craplets,' or apps dictated by the carrier, and often unremovable;

That notes that the presence of such craplets is a plus...

“That’s the nature of open..That’s actually a feature of Android.” (Andy Rubin said it.)

That acquires one of the three leading Android hardware handset makers (Motorola), despite the obvious disadvantage that it puts the other makers who bet on its commitment to openness.

Whereas Google has in essence stated a commitment to the good, bad and ugly that its open manifesto bears, they have been deathly silent about Amazon's successful launch of the Kindle Fire Tablet, the first REAL success of an Android-derived tablet.

Now, why could that be?

Because Amazon is using Google's open medicine to create a forked, proprietary village where Google is not invited?

Where Google Search is nowhere to be found;

Where Android Market is mostly unwelcome;

Where Android's look and feel is buried;

Where Google Maps won't open;

Where the 'spirit' of Google's version of open is closed for business.

Yes, for all of the platitudes that Google has uttered about 'open this,' 'open that,' they have said zero about what Amazon is doing.

When you boil it down, either:

A) This is the nature of open - a feature of it - and they should verbally acknowledge it as such. OR

B) They should raise their hand, and say that it's not cool, and embrace their 'open-ish'-ness. 

To sit silently as they are, in the face of a successful instance of their platform, is at best ironic, and more probably, hypocritical.

But, I am 'open' to other interpretations.

Related:

  1. Amazon's "Prime" Challenger to iPad
  2. Open "ish": The meaning of open, according to Google
  3. You say you want a revolution? It's called post-PC computing
  4. Existential Threats: Google v. Apple v. Amazon - who fares best?
  5. Built-to-Thrive - The Standard Bearers: Apple, Google, Amazon

December 23, 2011 in Amazon, Android, Apple, Google, iOS, Mobile | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Existential Threats: Google v. Apple v. Amazon - who fares best?

Existential-Threats

If Apple, Amazon and Google ⎯ my tech industry standard-bearers ⎯ were each confronted with an existential threat, who would fare best, and why?

What is an existential threat? In short, it's a doomsday scenario that threatens one's very existence, changing the rules of the game for survival going-forward.

I came to ponder this topic after I read Andy Zaky's excellent analysis of Apple's stock price performance, where he convincingly argues that Apple is the single most undervalued large-cap stock in America.

Reading it, I struggled how to wrap my head around why a dollar of Apple earnings were worth only 68 cents relative to the Google earnings dollar, and a truly feeble 14 cents relative to the Amazon earnings dollar (based upon each company's price-to-earnings ratio).

Don't get me wrong, intellectually I get it, having written on investor dead zones many times over the years.

That stated, it simply begged the question of whether Apple's investors are so skittish on the company's future prospects that they are blithely willing to dismiss its current performance, especially in light of Apple's tremendous acccelerated earnings growth.

Then, I read a Wall Street Journal piece on how Google is planning to compete with Amazon Prime via a one-day shipping program to be orchestrated in tandem with third party retailers.

This brought me back to the myriad of Google initiatives over the years that while seeming to have a larger purpose in the company's core business, lack the rigor of experiential focus and more pointedly, the 'show me' factor of direct pressure to produce real oxygen in the form of sales and profits.

The juxtaposition of these two stories transported me back to a conversation I'd had years back with one of my co-founders in a company that we'd recently sold to the '800 pound gorilla' of the segment.

Ruminating on whether we should hold onto our stock from the sale or cash out, my partner raised a question that I'll never forget.

"Do you think that if XYZ (name witheld) faced a major disruptive threat, that they have the DNA, secret sauce and intestinal fortitude to re-group and rebound?"

I didn't believe that they did, and that was that.

Rise to the Challenge, or Wither Away?

The lessons of the past is that there is no 'one right way' when faced with overcoming existential threats, as evidenced by how differently Intel, Microsoft and Apple responded when faced with potential doomsday scenarios.

In the case of Intel, the strategy when confronted by the commoditization of their original DRAM business was to re-invent themselves as a Microprocessor company.

In the case of Microsoft, threats such as the emergence of network operating systems, the rise of TCP/IP as a global communications protocol and the ascendance of the Web-browser and web-based apps were reconciled via an "embrace and extend" platform-centric strategy.

In the case of Apple, the strategy was highly pragmatic. First, they shored up the 'mother ship' Macintosh business by embracing their tight integration of hardware and software, and then they leveraged this position to invent the future via a 'halo effect' approach of self-cannibalization, new product creation and derivation, coupled with managed distribution channels (e.g., Apple Store, iTunes, App Store).

Most companies, however, lack the necessary combination of acumen and ego attenuation to make such reboots, and as such, the tech industry is littered with the remains of once-great companies that are either dead or strategically irrelevant, such as WordPerfect, Novell, Borland, Nortel, Motorola, Netscape, AOL, Sony and Yahoo, to name a few.

Where do Apple, Amazon and Google Fit in this Mix?

To the extent that Apple has faced multiple existential threats in its history, and A) has emerged bigger and stronger than ever from its experience; and B) has multiple members of its management team who remember the dark days, common logic says that the company has both the DNA and culture to overcome such threats.

Similarly, the company's strong track record of R&D is anchored by a rigorous focus on only pursuing new product initiatives that have a long-term path to economic durability, which bodes well for them relative to their peers, Steve Jobs or no.

What about Amazon? Interestingly, the company has been repeatedly battle-tested in segment after segment as a e-commerce provider, each time emerging stronger than ever.

Moreover, the company has been pronounced dead by investors more than once in its history, toughening its skin, and equally important, fomenting a culture of continuously improving the core business, while expanding into new domains. 

And while the company's R&D acumen is not quite to the level of Apple, Amazon has been able to accomplish its moves in a segment where wafer-thin operating margins are the norm, shielding it somewhat from the 'fat and lazy' mindset that has undermined many a company.

Where does that leave Google? The short answer is that we don't know. The company has never faced material risk to its primary revenue-generating ad business, and even though many (most?) would agree that the core Google search service is less magical and a bit long in the tooth, there are, for the moment, no direct threats to that business either.

Simply put, the company has never been battle-tested for operating in adverse environments, and frankly lacks both the R&D proof points that they can create new product lines which generate material sources of revenue and/or a cohesive sense of how the various piece parts fit together holistically. I would, however, give them credit for getting better on that latter point under Larry Page, as I wrote about here.

Netting it out: If a company's stock is a reflection of its current performance relative to its past, measured against its prospects and risks for managing for a better tomorrow, it seems clear that Apple is the gold standard in managing through existential threats, Amazon is the silver, and Google is the great unknown.

Related:

  1. Built-to-Thrive - The Standard Bearers: Apple, Google, Amazon
  2. Amazon's "Prime" Challenger to iPad
  3. You say you want a revolution? It's called post-PC computing

December 02, 2011 in Amazon, Apple, Google, Investing, Metrics, Pattern Recognition, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

The Netflix 'narrative' problem, and how to fix it

Netflix-AppleTV-HiRes
A brand is a distillation of the 'narratives' that a company pledges to satisfy for its constituency base of customers, partners, employees and investors.

These narratives speak to the company's value proposition, including the core jobs it is hired for and outcomes that it delivers, and equally, represents a commitment to deliver same consistently. 

When well-managed, the brand creates a trusted bond that can materially increase customer loyalty and operating margins, while reducing the cost to acquire new customers. In the process, such brand equity is tantamount to free advertising, and also inures a nice 'halo' effect on the company's stock.

But, when a brand appears to disregard the promises behind its narratives, irreparable damage can come to the business.

In the packaged goods realm, Perrier is a textbook example of a company doing everything wrong in living up to the standards of its brand (when reports leaked out about the cancer-causing chemical Benzene polluting its sparkling water product), and never rebounding from this disconnect.

Tylenol, by contrast, is a textbook case of a brand coming back stronger than ever by living to its credo in the face of dark circumstances (when pills tainted with Cyanide lead to several deaths of Tylenol users).

Enter Netflix, who faces a comparably life-threatening disaster (to their brand, not consumers' lives) to that faced by Perrier and Tylenol some time back, prompting the obvious question. Is the Netflix story destined to play out like Perrier or Tylenol?

But first, two disclaimers. One, I am a very happy current Netflix streaming customer and a former Netflix DVD customer, having quit the latter when the pricing model changed (I did not see enough value to continue, given my family's usage patterns).

My happiness with streaming stems from the fact that Netflix's streaming catalog is sufficiently wide and deep (although obviously not to the level of the DVD offering), and the service is sufficiently rich and enjoyable that my entire family accesses its programming on a near-daily basis.

As such, Netflix streaming has earned a spot in my living room, and in fact, is the primary usage anchor to my Apple TV.

I state this upfront, as I know many who don't see the streaming programming in a similar wide/deep/good enough light. Your mileage may vary.

The second disclaimer is that when I first trialed the Netflix hybrid service a few months back (yes, I ignored Netflix marketing for YEARS), I contacted DIRECTV, my satellite service, to tell them that I was canceling my Starz pack.

“Why?” Asked the DIRECTV support person. When I told them that I was allocating those dollars to Netflix, I promptly got a significant discount not to cancel Starz, which tells you all that you need to know about how DIRECTV views Netflix competitively.

These two data points provide some context for understanding Reed Hasting’s most recent shareholder letter, where he adroitly positions Netflix streaming as in the 'HBO bucket' (@ $8/month vs. HBO @ $12/month), as Peter Kafka notes in this extended excerpt Hasting's letter in Kafka's excellent ‘Comeback Plan’ piece. Says Hasting:

In television… the networks (ABC, FX, etc.) have long relied upon exclusive content to differentiate among themselves. As video moves online, so too has this practice of exclusive content. HBO has an exclusive license to recent Universal movies that includes its online HBO GO, for example. Netflix has signed exclusive licenses for DreamWorks Animation, for Relativity, and others. In episodic television, exclusives are also the norm. Netflix doesn’t license “Deadwood” from HBO because they see strategic value in keeping it exclusive. Netflix licenses “Mad Men” and “House of Cards” exclusively for much the same reason.

…We don’t have to “beat” Starz or other networks to succeed…We won’t have every movie or TV series; but we do provide enough value that consumers also want to subscribe to Netflix.

Any given consumer will have only one of DirecTV or Comcast, say, for their video service. That is classic either‐or competition. But with premium television networks like Netflix, the more good experiences there are, the more consumers are willing to spend to have multiple channels from which to get enjoyment.

Netflix Faces an Interesting Quandary

But, pursuing such an opportunity is not without peril.

On the one hand, Netflix is well-positioned to go after the HBO ‘premium channel’ bucket. Their long-tail catalog is relatively cheap and deep (in contrast to movie blockbuster programming), and they seem to have a good process in place for locking down that content.

In the big picture, it makes Netflix streaming better value and more enjoyable than HBO, save for HBO's hit series and new movie releases (which is 70-80% of my viewing time on HBO). 

At the same time, it seems very plausible that Netflix can "sprinkle in" enough 'must see' programming to secure a major foothold in this market.

If they can, then being on-demand, having wide distribution and delivering the composite viewing experience that Netflix offers (in tandem with the aforementioned) is a compelling value proposition for their rapidly growing 20M+ base of subscribers.

The quandary, however, is that streaming is diametrically opposed to DVD (and vice-versa), not only in terms of business model, but customer base as well.

It's the proverbial fork in the road, which is why they wanted to get rid of DVD in the first place. However, in being so ready to kick their loyal DVD customer base to second-tier status, they essentially dumped their long-term spouse to run off with the 'hot blonde,' which is tantamount to betrayal.

Is it any wonder that their brand image, stock and subscriber base has taken such a serious hit?

Now, I have a theory as to why they would act so dispassionately (economics aside), but more on that in a moment.

Either way, streaming is now the dog, and DVD is now the tail, and there is no use in pretending that it is otherwise. You can't fully put humpty-dumpty back together again.

For the DVD user, this is a perfect opportunity to see if the grass is greener elsewhere, and if it's not, take some solace that Netflix had their come to Jesus moment, and is re-committing to you. Forgive, but don't forget.

For the non-DVD Netflix user, other than the WTF aspect of how poorly orchestrated this was and the corresponding questions it raises about Netflix's once-pristine stewardship, it's mostly a non-event.

For investors, however, it's a value reset (as Felix Salmon notes at Reuters), for which there are no easy answers, save for time. The stock is down 75% since mid-year, and could go up, down, or sideways. It's anyone's guess. What is HBO worth, anyway?

In a perfect world, Netflix would operate the DVD service going forward (so as to maintain their brand equity), but someone else would own the business, maybe private equity.

What about Warren Buffett? He likes great brands. What about the DVD device makers, who need to extend the useful life of DVDs? 

Pursuing such a move would be Amazon-like in terms of knowing your core business, but being platform-minded and thinking outside the box in terms of growing and mainting the mindshare of your constituency.

Until they reconcile this intellectually, I suspect their body language is going to be akin to the unhappy couple that stays married for the benefit of the kids. Everyone's unhappy, including the kids.

A Brand Collision with Corporate Culture

10a_Images_DevicesI read a particularly harsh take on Netflix’s corporate culture called ‘Netflix: Terror at the Top?’

It argues that Netflix has a fear-based management culture where people are pretty readily discarded if they don’t live up to expectations.

There's good and bad in this. Great companies demand peak performance from their personnel, regardless of whether it’s someone operating at customer-facing, production, business development, marketing or management levels.

'A' players hire 'A' players. 'B's' hire 'C's,' and so on. While there's nothing warm and fuzzy about this, the fact remains that it often leads to better products and solutions.

But, one gets the sense that Netflix is dogmatic about this to the point that people are pushed out if/when they disappoint, and sooner or later, everyone disappoints, which creates a bit of schizophrenia, even if it has (clearly) served Netflix well -- prior to the current cluster-f-ck. 

In this context, one can see how pragmatic, intellectually-focused Reed Hastings sees one business materially contracting, and another showing substantial growth. He sees fundamentally different customer bases (color me dubious on this assertion of his) and different economics + licensing rights.

Were he a cynic, he could simply milk the business AOL-style, and keep his mouth shut. But, then how to position a service where the DVD narrative confuses the messaging, positioning and business approach of Streaming, especially when heretofore, the conventional wisdom was that Streaming was something free bundled on DVD?

Thus, the Qwikster moniker could be looked at one of two ways. As a company intentionally tarring their old business, so as to better segment their new business. 

Or, as a realization that as 'NOT Netflix,' the footprint of jobs that the service could target might change. They have already talked about games, but why not incorporate game consoles and Blue-Ray players, for example?

Either way, they now have a profitable, variable cost business with no uptick in subscriber acquisition cost to maintain.

It’s like saying, “DVD you can come if you want, but streaming is who we're courting.” Hastings basically compares DVD to the aforementioned AOL dialup business in ther earnings call.

Envisioning a Native Controller Client

Netflix-Controller

Here's where's the company can start turning the page. Namely, by showing how, as a native IP streaming service, Netflix has the potential to create new extensions to its core offering that make it more:

  • Social
  • Manage-able
  • Synchronized

The above Netflix Controller client that I've mocked up shows how such an experience might come together.

On the social front, the client makes it easy to broadcast what you are watching now to friends, including one-click access to that current scene/sequence that you are watching now for synchronized viewing, something that can't be readily done with DVDs.

A structured chat interface makes it easy to communicate in a way that is synchronous, shared and contextually linked to the specific content being watched, which opens to door to all sorts of news ways to both discover content and connect with like minds in real-time.

The ability to tie favorite scenes, movie trailers and favorite reviews together into a sort of IMDB on steroids type of listing is the third leg that makes this type of experience fresh and alive.

It hearkens back to a classic old Logitech ad introducing the wireless mouse where they contrast wired vs. wireless by showing a baby wearing a diaper (as the wired proxy), with the label 'Good' above the picture.

Adjacent to it, is the label 'Better,' with a diaper-less, giddy baby peeing a stream in the air. The message being that wireless is liberating.

Netting it out: Netflix needs to play a bit of three-dimensional chess so that its legacy DVD customers, who made the brand what it is, don't irreversibly pollute it, as many are emotionally prepared to do.

In parallel, it needs to spend some with its investor base articulating why Netflix's updated vision is a greater outcome than simply milking legacy (including better articulation of the likely 'honest outcome' for DVD).

And it needs to get back on offense by showcasing what a native IP streaming service can do that neither a legacy DVD biz nor a premium cable/satellite channel can touch.

Related:

  1. The Magic Adapter: Apple TV and the battle for the living room
  2. Apple, TV and the Smart, Connected Living Room
  3. Is Facebook a Brand that You Can Trust?

 

October 26, 2011 in Amazon, Apple, Branding, Coaching, Digital Media, Entertainment, Media, Pattern Recognition, Post-PC | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

You Say You Want a Revolution? It's Called Post-PC Computing (O'Reilly Radar)

Ml-header-radar

"You say you want a revolution,
Well, you know,
We all want to change the world."
 — The Beatles

I loved Google engineer Steve Yegge's rant about: A) Google not grokking how to build and execute platforms; and B) How his ex-employer, Amazon, does.

First off, it bucks conventional wisdom. How could Google, the high priest of the cloud and the parent of Android, analytics and AdWords/AdSense, not be a standard-setter for platform creation?

Second, as Amazon's strategy seems to be to embrace "open" Android and use it to make a platform that's proprietary to Amazon, that's a heck of a story to watch unfold in the months ahead. Even more so, knowing that Amazon has serious platform mojo.

But mostly, I loved the piece because it underscores the granular truth about just how hard it is to execute a coherent platform strategy in the real world.

Put another way, Yegge's rant, and what it suggests about Google's and Amazon's platform readiness, provides the best insider's point of reference for appreciating how Apple has played chess to everyone's checkers in the post-PC platform wars.

Case in point, what company other than Apple could have executed something even remotely as rich and well-integrated as the simultaneous release of iOS 5, iCloud and iPhone 4S, the latter of which sold four million units in its first weekend of availability?

Let me answer that for you: No one.

Post-PC: Putting humans into the center of the computing equation

10B-devices

There is a truism that each wave of computing not only disrupts, but dwarfs its predecessor.

The mainframe was dwarfed by the PC, which in turn has been subordinated by the web. But now, a new kind of device is taking over. It's mobile, lightweight, simple to use, connected, has a long battery life and is a digital machine for running native apps, web browsing, playing all kinds of media, enabling game playing, taking photos and communicating.

Given its multiplicity of capabilities, it's not hard to imagine a future where post-PC devices dot every nook and cranny of the planet (an estimated 10 billion devices by 2020, according to Morgan Stanley).

Read the full piece HERE.

Related:

  • 5 takeaways from Apple's iPhone 4S event
  • Ruminations on the legacy of Steve Jobs
  • Amazon's "Prime" Challenger to iPad
  • Apple's Segmentation Strategy (and the Folly of Conventional Wisdom)

 

October 24, 2011 in Amazon, Android, Apple, Google, iOS, Mobile, Post-PC | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Head to Head on R&D: Amazon since Kindle; Apple since iPod; Google since Android

Chart-AMZN-GOOG-AAPL

If you believe that the market is a discounter of all known information, then in my interpretation the market seems to be saying that Kindle and iPod are emblematic of companies operating on offense to create new sources of revenue; whereas Android, for its impressive market share numbers, is perceived as a defensive move to protect existing revenue sources.

Related:

  • Built-to-Thrive - The Standard Bearers: Apple, Google, Amazon

October 18, 2011 in Amazon, Android, Apple, Investing, iOS, Metrics, Pattern Recognition | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Amazon's "Prime" challenger to the iPad (Post @ O'Reilly Radar)

Amazon-kindle-logo-300

If you haven't noticed, creating and executing mobile platform plays is really hard. Just ask HP, RIM, Nokia and Microsoft.

Even Google's Android, which made it look easy to grab dominant market share in the smartphone market, is finding it much harder to secure a footprint in the tablet market, where, let's face it, there's iPad ... and iPad.

Enter Amazon, whose forthcoming Kindle Tablet represents the clearest alternative to Apple's iPad.

Read the full post HERE.

UPDATE: Amazon announced the device today, calling it Amazon Kindle Fire, pricing it at $199, and announcing a hybrid client-cloud browser called Silk as part of the composite offering. One core takeaway from assessing Apple's and Amazon's differing approaches to finding a "wedge" in the tablet/media device market is that unlike so many companies, both get market segmentation, and how it works. Namely, that It's NOT about selling attributes (as RIM, Samsung & webOS have discovered); it's about delivering targeted outcomes.

UPDATE 2: Amazon is getting flambeed in the press for what many consider a poorly conceived, poorly executed device. On some level, this is unsurprising, inasmuch as all of the rumors were that the device was delivered by the same ODM that built the RIM PlayBook (using comparable components). All heuristics seemed to suggest that this device was the stopgap to make Christmas, and that the next device will be the real deal. On the one hand, you have Amazon's assertions that the device is breaking records (whatever that means), and analysts modeling sales in the mid single-digit millions. On the other hand, you have some truly bad PR that could damage the Kindle brand, and Amazon's cred in this realm. I think they'll weather the storm, and that this is the messy pragmatism of Bezos at work - ship the idea, fix, iterate. Still, I wouldn't want to be owning the 1.0 Kindle Fire if I couldn't cope with tossing the device when the next one comes out.

Related:

  • Apple's Segmentation Strategy (and the Folly of Conventional Wisdom)
  • Five quickie thoughts on Amazon's tablet computer announcement
  • Head-to-Head for Ten Years: Wal-Mart, Amazon, Google and Apple

 

September 26, 2011 in Amazon, Android, Apple, Post-PC | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

(CHART) Head-to-Head for Ten Years: Wal-Mart, Amazon, Google and Apple

Ten-Years

This chart is illuminating, I think. Wal-Mart is so completely instutionalized that the present, past and future seem "priced in." It's obviously a great company, but how can you argue any differently?

Meanwhile, Google is making a ton of money, is completely dominant in search advertising, and has executed their moat strategy very effectively.

Yet, when positioned side-by-side against Amazon and Apple, it too, is far removed from tremendous "upside surprises."

Netting it out: Apple and Amazon still seem to know how to pull rabbits out of their hats, and their stocks reflect it.

It's something to think about in handicapping the next stage of the media tablet market, and the respective ecosystems that will emerge, sustain or get marginalized around same.

UPDATE:Steven Cains (@cains) notes via twitter that it's not really fair to compare $WMT due to dividends (Wal-Mart pays em; Apple, Amazon and Google don't). It's an obviously fair point, but if anything, it seems to affirm the macro narrative that Wal-Mart's got predictability (in all forms) priced in.

September 20, 2011 in Amazon, Android, Apple, Google, Media, Metrics, Mobile, Pattern Recognition, Post-PC | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Comic-Con, Convergence and the Rise of Integrated Media

Comic-Con

"Here’s my prediction: Almost every dotcom idea from 10 years ago that failed will succeed." - Marc Andreessen

When I got into tech back in 1994, convergence was was the holy grail.

It was borne of the idea that one day the then-immovable boundaries between the following industries would collapse, enabling a new kind of integrated value chain to emerge:

  • Television
  • Motion Pictures
  • Music
  • Consumer Electronics
  • Internet
  • Telephony
  • Print Media
  • Advertising
  • Videogames
  • Computing

The promise of this concept led Sony, the inventor of the Walkman, to acquire Columbia Pictures. It led regional phone service provider, Bell Atlantic, seeking to re-factor the communications and entertainment landscape, to pursue a merger with cable TV giant, TCI.

In fact, over the next decade, the 'promised land' of convergence drove a flurry of mergers and acquisitions, reaching its apex when Time Warner merged with AOL.

AOL-TW

That many of these deals failed disastrously (in the case of AOL Time Warner) or were never consummated (in the case of Bell Atlantic-TCI) is besides the point.

Poor execution aside, the pursuers of convergence were simply ahead of their time, a truth bounded by the way that:

  1. Apple has reshaped so many of these industries by vertically integrating them across media, mobile and tablet device form-factors from distribution channel to software platform, apps and media marketplace.
  2. Comcast has leveraged physical connectivity to so many homes (and a commensurate billing relationship) into owning NBCUniversal, extensive cable channel holdings and a growing telephony business.
  3. Amazon has emerged as Walmart, Cloud Computing platform and Kindle/tablet maker, rolled into one.

Put another way, as a VC friend of mine once said, "It's as lethal to be too early, as it is to be wrong."

It's this truth that gives folks like Marc Andreesseen the confidence to predict that many of the lamest ideas of the dotcom period will yet be vindicated (I think that he's right on this one), and it's this same truth that was on display at Comic-Con 2011 aka San Diego Comic-Con International.

A Snapshot of how 'Integrated' Media has Become

Comic-Con-Souvenir For me, the AHA moment in planning my Comic-Con experience was attempting to digest a priori an event guide that was almost 200 pages, and it was full of...actual events!

Consider, a four-day long event that literally envelops the city and county of San Diego, bringing in over 130,000 fans of comic books, horror, animation, manga, games and fantasy, making it the single largest convention in America.

If you want to see how integrated media has become (and can become), ponder an event that provides a unified sandbox for:

  1. Content Producers to showcase, screen and publicize their new Comic Books, Movie Releases, Cable TV shows, Videogames and Toys;
  2. Fans to meet cast members, industry luminaries and their favorite artists, and get their autographs; see their latest projects and hear them talk about them; and, oh yeah, dress up as their favorite characters;
  3. Vendors to sell Books, T-Shirts, Posters, Toys, Artwork, Comics and other industry paraphanelia;
  4. Artists to present their portoflios for review and potential hire by content producers.

CafeDiem Btw, if you're familiar with the integrated media unit known as a "home page takeover" on a web site, consider what Syfy channel did in taking over an actual, physical restaurant (Maryjane's Coffee Shop in Hard Rock Hotel), and rebranding it for the event as Syfy's CafeDiem, down to the signage, tabletops and menus.

One can only wonder if the boring, staid Oscars and Emmy Awards events were reinvisioned as a like-type festival for producers, fans, vendors and artists alike if, maybe, just maybe, the industry would foment a deeper bond between their audience and their slate of programs/movie releases, not to mention the publicity and promotion food chain.

The Moral of the Story

Apple logo blue When I think of the enormous success of Comic-Con (especially relative to the general lameness of the trade show industry in general), and I ponder the recent blowout earnings of both Amazon and Apple, I think about how often conventional wisdom gets things wrong specifically by creating false 'Either/OR' dichotomies.

In the tech business, for the longest time it was not only conventional wisdom, but it was the gospel and hardline religion, that you had to be horizontally organized, and focused on one thing, one discrete line of business, or you were destined to the scrap heap of history.

The truth of the matter is that a lot has to go right, both tactically and culturally, for convergence and integration to work.

But seeing how much of a win (for all types of users) such integrated platforms are across Post-PC (Apple), Commerce (Amazon) and Media (Comic-Con), I think that it's just a matter of time before the next wave - Convergence 2.0 - is born.

After all, where visionary leaders show the way, smart students will follow.

Related Posts:

  1. Ruminations on MacWorld 2011 and the Future of Trade Shows
  2. The Programmable Fan Site: A New Media/Ad Unit Model
  3. Apple's Segmentation Strategy (and the Folly of Conventional Wisdom)
  4. Thoughts on Book Expo America trade show: Rebooting the Book - Part Two

 

July 28, 2011 in Advertising, Amazon, Apple, Books, Digital Media, Entertainment, Games, Marketing, Media, Pattern Recognition, Post-PC, Television | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Five quickie thoughts on Amazon's tablet computer announcement

Amazon-Kindle

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Amazon will be releasing a tablet computing device by October.

Some quickie thoughts on this:

  1. Amazon is the only company with the media relationships AND comparably-sized billing relationship with consumers to directly challenge Apple. No one else has either of these elements, let alone both of them. Not Google, not HP, RIM, Microsoft, Facebook etc.
  2. In the consumer realm, Hollywood-style media (music, movies, TV shows, books) is such a core "job" of a tablet device, that NOT having an iTunes equivalent is analogous to a missing leg on a table. It's pretty integral, unless wobbly is okay with you.
  3. Arguably, Amazon understands product discovery and recommendation even better than Apple does, and certainly groks the transaction and distribution logistics of that equation at least comparably well.
  4. What's interesting about this one, is that while the spotlight is on Amazon and Apple as competitors, Amazon is also very well-positioned to outflank Google's play with Android. How? By better leveraging their installed base with Kindle; by building both tight integration with the Amazon Android App store and with Amazon Cloud Services; by better harnessing their recommendation services on both digital and physical goods (e.g., "Looking to buy a screwdriver? Constructor App will help you with construction project budgeting."); and of course, the aforementioned billing relationship, which facilitates one click purchases.
  5. For developers, the market needs an integrated alternative to iOS, if for no other reason than to keep Apple honest, and also because not enough developers are making serious coin in either the iOS or Android model. Amazon, if they get their act together, can seriously court developers on the premise of their success with their Cloud Services offerings, not to mention the various hybrid programs they have proven out over the years for smaller retailers to plug into the Amazon Marketplace. Heck, there is even a place for an affiliate model in all of this to make app discovery more viral. Put another way, there are legions of Android developers who like the Android model, but don't like having to support the compatibility matrix from hell on the device front, not to mention the fact that the Google model is all about free, which is not exactly music to the ears of the typical developer. 

What gets me most excited about this is the fact that in Amazon and Bezos, you have a company that is clearly focused on execution.

Case in point, on both the product and M&A front, they have had very few crash and burn outcomes. This is a company that is disciplined and durable such that when they launch an effort they keep iterating until they get it right...and then they make it better.

Plus, as a developer, they are focused on making stuff that directly makes money when it sells. Not a trick subsidized offering to sell their real product, be it advertising, customer's data, etc.

Finally, it's hard not to root for a vendor whose approach inspires the kind of loyalty that one associates with...Apple (and Google).

RELATED:

  1. The iPhone, the Angry Bird and the Pink Elephant (O'Reilly Radar)
  2. Built-to-Thrive: The Standard Bearers: Apple, Google, Amazon
  3. Google Android: on Inevitability, the Dawn of Mobile, and the Missing Leg (O'Reilly Radar)

July 13, 2011 in Amazon, Android, Apple, Digital Media, Google, iOS, Mobile, Post-PC | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

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