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Ruminations on The Mobile Native Cloud: An Extensible Computing Model for Post - PC

 

The Mobile Native Cloud (via slideshare)

Each wave of computing changes not only how applications are MADE, and the economics behind them, but our very concept of what the medium can BE. 

Consider the Post - PC computing era. It is defined by the rise of 10B mobile devices, which are converging in a globally connected cloud that is social, service oriented and massively scalable.

It's every bit the sea change for computing that the Web was to the PC, and the PC was to the Mainframe and Minicomputer that came before it.

Simply put, Post - PC computing opens the door to new forms of native experiences that are dynamic, data-driven and media rich. 

This presentation above looks at the ramifications of this wave, including key industry trends and a real-world case study of a series of applications built upon this model.

I'd love your thoughts on whether you agree with the assertions in the presentation, if there are specific use cases particularly resonant for you, any 'gotchas' that you see, or areas where clarification is needed.

UPDATE: Paul Adams has written an excellent article called 'Why cards are the future of the web' that is highly complimentary to the concepts espoused in my SlideShare, and worth a read. The always-excellent Benedict Evans has also written on the topic.

Related:

  1. You say you want a revolution? It's called post-PC computing
  2. The Middleband Project: Re-Thinking Mobile Native Content
  3. 3 Takeaways from the WWDC Keynote: How Apple Got its Groove Back
  4. 6 Takeaways from the Google IO Keynote

July 08, 2013 in Amazon, Android, Apple, Digital Media, iOS, Mobile, Pattern Recognition, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Why Netflix is betting on Apps over Channels: It's All About Being 'Native'

Netflix

"Look at the bigger picture." 
- Francis Underwood, House of Cards

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has written an 11-page essay that's embedded below. It's quite excellent, and lays out his vision for the future of Internet TV (Peter Kafka of AllThingsD has a crisp summary of the key bullet points HERE). 

In particular, it underscores why Hastings' Netflix deserves to be mentioned in the same reverential tones as Apple, Amazon and Google.

For one, there is the clear articulation of a 'North Star' that guides the company forward; namely, winning more of their members 'moments of truth' - i.e., those times when a consumer could play a game, read a book, chat on the phone or watch conventional TV, but chooses Netflix instead.

The virtue of having a North Star is that it instructs clear narrative-driven thinking, tightening focus, process and execution. It is one reason that we readily associate Apple, Amazon and Google as the gold standard companies of their industry, and so few others.

It's also one reason that it almost feels inevitable that at some point, Google (4.3% of their market cap), Apple (2.8% of their market cap) or Amazon (10.3% of their market cap) will **need** to acquire Netflix (I'd add Disney as a dark horse candidate).

After all, TV viewing captures a billion hours a day of consumers' time, and Netflix has created a model whereby 30 million of these consumers are paying a monthly subscription fee for access to the service.

In other words, despite all of the various activities that fight for consumers attention, Netflix is winning at: A) securing members; B) monetizing those members; and C) growing their base through differentiation. 

Talk about **earned attention.**

Netflix is Betting BIG on Apps

Netflix_CompanyFacts

It is with that backdrop that I took particular interest in Hastings' assertion that Apps -- not streams -- but Apps --will replace Channels as the primary construct for delivering Internet TV. He mentioned the term 25 times in the document, no less.

I think that there are two things that one needs to keep in mind relative to the "apps" versus "channels" topic. 

One is that a channel is simply a payload, and an app is simply a wrapper for delivering that payload.

It's no different in that context from saying that Apple turned the phone into an app. We don't need to think about it in that context because the phone app does what a phone is supposed to do.

Quite the contrary. We now think of the iPhone as much more than a phone, right?

Two, is the unlike a simple envelope, the wrapper of an app can actually enable to DO stuff; namely, show you related content, extend the context with communications, enable you to share the content, rate it, excerpt it, roll it into a play list, etc.

The point is that an app can do things that a simple stream can not, and Hastings clearly groks that this is about delivering **native experiences.**

This is also why a show like 'House of Cards' launched with the entire Season 1. In Netflix, binge viewing is a native behavior, right?

Along these lines, Hastings specifically dispels the idea of Netflix even having a fixed notion of what constitutes a 'season' in their model.

It's all about being native, something that I have written extensively about, most recently HERE.

Related:

  1. Apple’s North Star vs. Earth’s Gravity: Four Takeaways from Apple’s Earnings Call
  2. Built-to-Thrive - The Standard Bearers: Apple, Google, Amazon
  3. Mobile 'native' publishing: Why our concept of content must evolve in the post-PC era

Netflix Ir Letter

May 03, 2013 in Amazon, Apple, Digital Media, Entertainment, Media, Mobile, Pattern Recognition, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets, Television | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Mobile 'native' publishing: Why our concept of content must evolve in the post-PC era (O'Reilly @TOC)

Early-TalkieOne reason that industry disruptions prove so vexing to market leaders is that disruptive waves simultaneously barrel through assumptions about customer needs, industry economics and operational best practices.

Consider the case of the motion picture business, an industry that was disrupted when the “talkie” — once derided as a costly gimmick — subsumed the silent picture in the 1920s.

The takeaway from the film industry’s transition is instructive. The talkie not only changed how movies were made and the economics of the business itself, but critically, it changed our concept of what a movie could be.

In doing so, it transformed the medium forever (The Speed of Sound by Scott Eyman is an excellent book on this topic).

Disrupted by digital

As we move toward a post-PC universe of 10 billion mobile devices, a similar disruption is playing out in the publishing business.

Print media is patient zero in the ongoing saga of “disrupted by digital,” an unstoppable force that has decimated one time toll road businesses like newspapers, and is threatening to squeeze out the last breaths of magazine and book publishers.

That this occurs at a time when physical bookstores are also under assault is hardly a coincidence given the tight links between publishers and bookstores on book distribution, discovery and monetization. The brutal reality is that when an industry is disrupted, the entire ecosystem feels the pain.

The rise of dynamic content services

So if publishing must evolve, what does this mean for publishers?

Most basically, it suggests that whereas static text and pictures define our current concept of publishing, in the mobile era, we need to think about what is being “published” as a native app that re-configures itself based upon the content being served. Logically, this type of system autonomously generates data.

This has significant ramifications for how such content is made, what it can do, and the underlying systems required for delivering and receiving the same.

DCS-model2

Read the full piece at O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing by clicking HERE.

Related:

  1. You say you want a revolution? It’s called post-PC computing (O'Reilly Radar)
  2. Rebooting the Book: One iPad at a Time (O'Reilly Radar)
  3. Anatomy of an eBook App: Lessons learned building a Top 20 eBook App (O'Reilly Radar)

 

March 25, 2013 in Advertising, Design, Digital Media, iOS, Marketing, Media, Pattern Recognition, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Number Skills (Age 5+) is the latest app launched in 'Play and Learn with Wallace'

Image

Number Skills (Age 5+) is the latest app launched in the 'Play and Learn with Wallace' early learning series, and it is now available in the App Store.

This app teaches children the essentials for learning simple math with activities about adding and subtracting numbers between 1 and 10. It includes six different games - Problem Train, Card Problems, Button Numbers, Raining Numbers, Bus Math and Math Class. 

Like all games in Play and Learn with Wallace, Number Skills integrates with our Personalized Profile and Rewards Chart system, so kids can feel great about their progress.

Also, the content in the apps loads in randomly so kids don't get bored.

When you purchase two or more apps, the apps can be Super Shuffled together, giving kids the benefit of a blended learning experience. Learning professionals will tell you that blended learning is one of the best ways for kids to learn rapidly and retain more deeply.

As always, the full-featured trial is FREE.

To find our more about the system, watch the video below, read my original post on the topic, or better yet, download the software on your iPad.

To celebrate the launch, Number Skills is $1.99 for a limited time only (it's usually $3.99).

The series was recently cited by Today's Parent Magazine as one of the coolest apps for kids.

Today's Parent - coolest apps for kids - march 2013

March 18, 2013 in Digital Media, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Introducing Play and Learn with Wallace



This short video is a superb encapsulation of what I have been working on for the past year with the good folks at Macmillan Children's Publishing, and their much beloved imprint, Priddy Books.

If you don't know them by name, Priddy is the maker of over 500 books, including First Words, ranked by Scholastic as one of the 100 Greatest Books for Kids. They have sold over 100M titles over the past decade so they really understand the early learning segment.

Working around a model known as co-creation, we called upon our own learnings from building dozens of ebooks, apps and games at Unicorn Labs, combined those learnings with the ethos and IP of Priddy, and a built that into a series of early learning apps.

These apps are delightfully fun for kids, to be sure, but in the process of play, kids develop cognitive, creative, spelling, math and drawing skills.

What's unique about the approach is that while each app can be used separately, the apps can also be "super-shuffled," or mixed together dynamically, to provide what is known as blended learning, a proven methodology that helps children learn more rapidly and more deeply.

I will write more about the system that underlies 'Play and Learn,' but in the interim, I would encourage you to watch the video, and download the app, which is free.

New titles in the series will be rolling out monthly. In fact, here's a teaser about our next title, Picture Puzzles, which launches at the end of the month.

Picture-Puzzles-is-coming

Related:

  1. Rebooting the Book (One iPad at a Time)
  2. Kirkus Reviews gives Spot the Dot a Kirkus Star as a Book of Remarkable Merit

January 15, 2013 in Design, Digital Media, Education, Games, iOS, Mobile, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Amazon 'kindles' the competitive fire: “We’re the elephant in the room” (GigaOM)

Amazon-kindle-fire-hd-89-hands-on

“Here endeth the lesson.” —Jim Malone, “The Untouchables”

There is a great moment in the movie “The Untouchables,” when street-smart cop Jim Malone (played by Sean Connery) explains to federal agent Elliot Ness (played by Kevin Costner) the laws of the urban jungle that was 1920s Chicago, culminating his sermon by saying, “Here endeth the lesson.”

In his own way, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos delivered a similar message today about the laws of the post-PC jungle when he unveiled the next generation of all things Kindle. In doing so, he accomplished two things.

One, he firmly anchored the precept that other than Apple, Amazon is the elephant in the room when it comes to tablet and media devices, aka the post-PC universe.

After all, there is no company out there (other than Apple) that can so seamlessly combine ecommerce, digital media, publishing, cloud computing and hardware know-how — and do so at wafer-thin margins.

Read the full post at GigaOM by clicking HERE.

Related:

  1. Amazon's "Prime" challenger to the iPad (O'Reilly)
  2. You say you want a revolution? It's called post-PC computing
  3. Built-to-Thrive: The Standard Bearers: Apple, Google, Amazon
  4. Existential Threats: Google v. Apple v. Amazon - who fares best?

September 07, 2012 in Amazon, Android, Apple, Digital Media, Mobile, Pattern Recognition, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

On co-creation, contests and crowdsourcing (O'Reilly Radar)

Two-logos

I had decided to update the branding at one of my companies, and that meant re-thinking my logo.

The creative exercise started with a logo design contest posting at 99designs, an online marketplace for crowdsourced graphic design.

When it was all done, I had been enveloped by an epic wave of 200 designs from 38 different designers.

It was a flash mob, a virtual meetup constructed for the express purpose of creating a new logo. The system itself was relatively lean, providing just enough “framing” to facilitate rapid iteration, where lots of derivative ideas could be presented, shaped and then re-shaped again.

The bottom line is that based on the primary goal of designing a new logo, I can say without hesitation that the model works.

Read the full post HERE.

Related

  1. Makers, Marketplaces and the Library of the Commons
  2. Ruminations on MacWorld and the Future of Trade Shows
  3. Creating New Synapses in the Global Brain: Notes from Foo Camp

 

August 06, 2012 in Branding, Design, Digital Media, Economy, Pattern Recognition, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Is Netflix for eBooks a Winning concept?

Netflix-for-ebooks

Mike Shatzkin has written an excellent post evaluating subscription models in the ebook space, concluding that they make sense more for ebook niches (i.e., specific segments) than as a general offering.

His main point is that in contrasting the success stories at Spotify and Netflix with the prospects for eBooks, one has to look at the concept of granularity; namely, the fact that there are far fewer total movies and songs produced each year (measured in the thousands) than books (measure in the hundreds of thousands).

Read the whole piece, as it covers the history of such business models in the book space, success stories, and how the evolution of online has changed the equation.

My core actionable takeaways from the piece are three-fold: 

  1. MEDIA MATTERS: The distinctions between different media types drives their consumption patterns, which in turn drives monetization paths. After all, it was an easy evolution to unbundle the song from the album because the unit of value still worked (arguably better) at the level of the song. Even watching a movie is only a two-hour commitment. Both of these exercises naturally occur in lean back mode. By contrast, reading requires an engaged user, and a book takes days-to-weeks to consume, constraining the types of users and use cases where subscription is compelling. 
  2. UNITS OF VALUE: With books, the challenge is to define the unit of value whereby the whole book can be 'systemically un-bundled' into smaller units, and then aggregated into a larger library so as to create the kind of deeper value that supports a subscription model. Reference books are logical places for these things, as are segments like education and business where there are new types of media/engagement units that can be cobbled together to create value (e.g., cliff notes, best practices 'recipes,' quizzes, etc).
  3. CATCH-22: The challenge for most publishers contemplating this path is that there is both a material cost to re-factor content AND an income risk that new ventures in this arena don't cost-justify. As such, it's a bit of a Catch-22 for these folks. Why? On the one hand, the clear trend is for publishers to get increasingly squeezed by Amazon (especially if/when there is no more B&N). On the other, the individual stakeholder at a publisher who goes out on a limb to make this type of investment has to fight internal friction to play it safe, and thus faces career risk if things go awry, doubly challenging in an industry where lateral moves are scarce.

Such truths favor upstarts over incumbents (or Amazon, of course), but this is one story whose book has not yet been written.

Related:

  1. The Five Keys to a Successful eBook Production: The Story of Spot the Dot
  2. Anatomy of an eBook App (O'Reilly Radar)
  3. Creating a Top 10 eBook with Corona (Ansca Website)
  4. Rebooting the Book: One iPad at a Time (O'Reilly Radar)
  5. Ruminations on last week's Book Expo America: What it means for the Book Biz

July 19, 2012 in Amazon, Books, Digital Media, Metrics, Pattern Recognition, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Nice! Unicorn Labs is Profiled: Building an Award-Winning App Portfolio with Corona

RabbitTurtleA successful San Francisco-based studio, Unicorn Labs has used Corona SDK to develop a number of popular apps, including an App of the Week winner – Rabbit and Turtle’s Amazing Race.

This impressive app even cracked the Top 10 list for free eBooks, and went on to become one of the top grossing eBooks for iPad in late 2010.

What’s the company’s secret sauce and how has Corona contributed to Unicorn Labs’ success?

Mark Sigal, Chief Product Officer of Unicorn Labs, is a longtime Corona user and shares his thoughts on why Corona is the standout choice for mobile development.

Read the full piece HERE.

June 27, 2012 in Digital Media, iOS, Mobile, Pattern Recognition, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Apple's iTV and the implications of what Steve said (O'Reilly Radar)

ITV

If I accept conventional wisdom, Apple is getting into the TV-making business because:

  1. The living room is the last consumer segment that Apple has yet to completely remake in its image.
  2. Apple creates new markets where none exist, and it isn't satisfied with merely improving upon existing ones.
  3. Steve Jobs allegedly said that he'd cracked the code for creating an integrated TV set.
  4. If the iPad is really "just" a big iPod Touch, and has already sold 55 million units, then a TV that is "just" a big iPad could do gonzo business.
  5. The business of making TVs is broken, and Apple has to fix it.
  6. Cable and satellite providers are evil, and Apple has to liberate consumers.
  7. Tim Cook "needs" a hit.

As I stated in my last post following Apple's gaudy earnings numbers, I don't accept conventional wisdom because conventional wisdom is dead! Apple killed it.

Read the entire piece here.

UPDATE:

  1. UK's ITV reportedly warns Apple not to brand their yet-unannounced smart television, 'iTV.' Meanwhile, Google updates YouTube for a better experience on Google TV.
  2. MIT Technology Review cites my Apple iTV article in assessing Apple's TV plans.

Related:

  1. The magic adapter: Apple TV and the battle for the living room
  2. It’s Time to ‘Think Different’ because Conventional Wisdom is Dead: Thoughts on Apple’s Q1 Earnings Call
  3. Apple's Segmentation Strategy (and the Folly of Conventional Wisdom) 
  4. Apple, TV and the Smart, Connected Living Room

February 13, 2012 in Apple, Digital Media, Entertainment, iOS, Music, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets, Television | 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)

"You Will" (and I Did)

PhotoIn 1993, AT&T ran an ad campaign called "You Will" (see below) whose purpose was to provide consumers a clear visual sense of how in the not too distant future, communications, entertainment and commerce would be transformed.

A typical ad asked the viewer, "Have you ever watched the movie you wanted to, the minute you wanted to..or tucked your baby in from a phone both?"

The Tagline - "You Will. And The Company That'll Bring It To You: AT&T"

Well, for the most part AT&T wasn't destined to be 'the company that'll bring it to you,' but the 'hit rate' of the predictions was pretty darn good, inasmuch as they predate the emergence of the web and mobile broadband.

I thought about these ads a bunch this week while having daily video calls with my wife and kids -- while my wife was driving the kids home from school, and despite being away from them out of the country.

Me on my iPhone 4, with only Wifi and Skype, and my wife on her iPhone using Verizon 3G. And for the most part, it worked like a charm.

It is in such moments that the inevitability of such technologies, and the magic of their actual realization, turns cynicism into pixie dust.

 

January 13, 2012 in Apple, Digital Media, Mobile, Post-PC, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Jolly and Roger's Misguided Adventures: Quest for the Dragon Tear (Children's interactive ebook for iPad)

Jolly-4Panel

Jolly and Roger's Misguided Adventures: Quest for the Dragon Tear is now LIVE in the App Store. 

This interactive children's ebook for iPad was produced by my company, Unicorn Labs, and co-created with Stephen Silver (Kim Possible, Danny Phantom) and Frank Rocco (Wow Wow Wubbzy, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness).

It's a wonderfully enjoyable story with beautiful, hand-drawn art, intensely great audio, and a treasure chest full of 70+ fun surprises.

Plus, it showcases the power of our ebook creation engine, Unicorn Engine for eBooks, which enables rapid development of highly interactive ebooks in a fraction of the time and cost of completely custom efforts.

In fact, via the Unicorn Engine, we have already earned both a coveted Kirkus Star on David A. Carter's 'Spot the Dot,' which we produced for Ruckus Media, and achieved a Top 10 revenue grossing eBook on 'Rabbit and Turtle's Amazing Race.' 

What is 'Jolly' about? It is a story about dueling pirates, a witch's curse, and a little boy who dreams of becoming a pirate. It is the first chapter in a continuing saga, a true original creation for a rapidly evolving medium.

The book is priced at $4.99, and there is a free Lite version that you can check out to "try before you buy," but to celebrate the launch, we are pricing 'Jolly' at 99 cents for one-week only.

To get a flavor of what Jolly and Roger's Misguided Adventures: Quest for the Dragon Tear is all about, check out this one minute video trailer.

Update: AppAdvice has a decent write-up of the book, and is giving away a few promo codes for a free download of the book. Check it out.

Update #2: ANSCA (makers of Corona) has honored the book by naming it their App of the Week. Also, here is the Podcast that I did in tandem with it being announced.

Update #3: Our book is picking up steam, and 'Jolly' is now the #44 Top Paid iPad Book App.

Related:

  1. The Five Keys to a Successful eBook Production: The Story of Spot the Dot
  2. Kirkus Reviews gives Spot the Dot a Kirkus Star as a Book of Remarkable Merit
  3. Rebooting the Book: One iPad at a Time
  4. Anatomy of an eBook App

November 23, 2011 in Apple, Books, Digital Media, iOS, Media, Streams and Nuggets | Permalink | 0 Comments | TrackBack (0)

Inconvenient Truths: How Adobe lost the Mobile Wars

Adobe-Flash

In 2005, I launched a startup in the online video space by the name of vSocial. Powered by Adobe Flash's 'embed and spread' capabilities, our service grew virally, piggybacking on the growth of the emerging social networks, most fundamentally, MySpace.

In about 120 days from launch, it would grow from 0 to 71M+ monthly page views, and 45M+ monthly videos served.

Moreover, there is little question that the rise of YouTube (and countless other video service providers) was directly tied to the power of Flash to facilitate viral distribution.

In fact, numerous video clip sharing networks existed before Flash took hold, but for this lack of virality, never reached a tipping point.

I was sufficiently blown away by the potency of Flash that I wrote in mid-2006 that Flash was delivering on the promise of 'write-once, run-anywhere' in a way that Java never would, and had the potential to be the fuel that drove the engine of social computing.

Meanwhile, Adobe was spreading the message how by the end of 2006, tens of millions of mobile devices would be running Flash lite, giving developers the dream scenario of being able to develop on one platform that would run on PCs, Macs, the Web and Mobile devices.

There are no Shortcuts to Greatness

I set the above backdrop, as in 2006, iPhone had not yet been announced, Adobe had incredible market momentum with Flash, legions of dedicated developers, and as a developer, the ideal of NOT having to create different code bases for different platforms, while maintaining rich application and media functionality, was a no-brainer. 

Thus, IF Adobe had delivered in mobile, I and most of the developers in my circle would have enthusiastically ridden that bandwagon.

There is not a SINGLE mobile Flash Success Story

Flash-forward to the present, and the inconvenient truth is NOT that Apple blocked Adobe, but rather, that there is not a single mobile success story that Adobe can hang its hat on showing why mobile Flash is more asset than liability, let alone a viral propagating game-changer.

Think about that for a moment. There is not a SINGLE mobile Flash success story that one can point to either at the killer app level, the handset level or the carrier level. And it's not for lack of interest on the part of any of these constituencies.

You don't think that RIM desperately wants to be able to piggyback on the installed base of Flash on the desktop?

Or, that Google didn't want Flash's presence on Android to make Apple's iOS look closed and hobbled?

Or, that the legions of Flash developers didn't want to see their existing Flash apps running on mobile devices?

Or, that AT&T and Verizon didn't want a device-agnostic software play that would strengthen their hand relative to end-to-end providers like RIM and Apple?

How the fuck did this NOT happen for Adobe?

If they had even remotely executed on the mobile side in terms of portability, performance and battery life, they would likely still be in the driver's seat, and Apple would have had no choice but to capitulate and put Flash on iOS (something that every Mac owner knows would have sucked the performance 'juice' out of iOS).

Adobe didn't Bow to Apple; they FELL on their face

The narrative that Adobe management would desperately love to propagate is that, in the end, pushing Flash on mobile was blocked by Apple, and the success of iOS forced the company to shift to open standards like HTML5 (which notably, has been long-pushed by 'closed,' proprietary Apple).

The hard truth is that almost eight years after Flash variants were introduced to run on mobile devices, and five years after Adobe began pushing mobile as core to its Flash everywhere strategy, mobile Flash is a dog without any serious defenders outside of Adobe.

In other words, in the so-called war for mobile video and mobile app run-time supremacy, Adobe simply never showed up, something to keep in mind when you see ludicrous headlines, such as WSJ's 'Adobe Bows in Apple Feud.'

If anything, the company that was once known for creating brilliant tools and core technologies for creative professionals and web developers, fell prey to its own internal entropy.

In this context, shooting mobile Flash in the head hopefully frees the company both psychically and from a resource perspective to focus on building great products that enable HTML and other open web technologies to realize their potential in mobile, the desktop and beyond.

But, as others have noted, the sheer PR-speak, gobbledy-gook nature of their announcement that they are killing mobile Flash is indicative of a company that continues to confuse assembling a bunch of fatty chicken parts with the magic and alchemy of creating a living, breathing, organic free-range chicken.

That, in tandem with their failure with Mobile Flash, is the inconvenient truth the company needs to get clarity on IF they are going to turn the tide of irrelevancy in mobile.

UPDATE: Mike Chambers, Adobe’s Principal Product Manager for developer relations for the Flash Platform, has written a 'clarifications' post that in blaming Apple, seems to be confusing correlation with causality so as to ignore an inconvenient truth. After all, Adobe was like the 'Boy who Cried Wolf' for so long that when Apple came along and solved many of the problems that Flash had been known for and then Adobe STILL failed to make them pay for it on Android, RIM, etc., it was more a case of death by irrelevance than by attack. 

Related:

  1. Adobe Crumbling: Is Winning Mobile Flash Fight Critical to Company’s Success?
  2. RIM: Confusing a Bag of Chicken Parts with a Living, Breathing Chicken

November 10, 2011 in Android, Apple, Digital Media, Google, iOS, Pattern Recognition, Post-PC | 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)

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