'Touch and Feel' of Good Content Often a Mystery

 By Adam McIlwaine

EU Editor

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which pretty much dominated the technology and business press this week, is like one of those mystery  boxes little kids are asked to put their hands into to guess what is inside by the touch and feel.  You'll get ten different answers from ten different kids, and then when they finally discover what it actually is they will scream with glee that they knew what it was all along.

The CES is just like that, only more confusing.  You are never really sure of the what trends come out of each years event because the massive gathering tries to be all things to all people.  Sure, consumer electronics dominates the show - which is expected given its moniker.  However, there is also a fair amount of non-electronics stuff as well, ranging from furniture to high-tech floor mops. 

Okay, maybe I made up the thing about floor mops, but you get my drift.  It is that box with some very strange things inside, only on a much larger scale. 

This year's show was a bit different since thee was a heavy emphasis on entertainment, especially Internet-based and mobile video entertainment.  This is perfect, since the current writers strike in Hollywood has pretty much decimated traditional television, leaving a sad trail of reality shows, home improvement programming and an even more vast wasteland of drivel. If anything, the strike has dramatically driven home the importance of writing and content when it comes to broadcasting and programming.  

My recommendation:  Give the writers everything they want or get used to that huge sucking sound, which is made by people running away from their TV sets in droves.  I wold be really, really upset if I spent a few thousand dollars on a neat 1080p high-def television to watch funny guy Conan O'Brien spin his wedding ring for a minute or two.

The good news is that  these ex-pat viewers have discovered the Internet and mobile content as they pathetically search for a broadcast fix.   Even better news is that they have now realized how really bad most of the current Internet content is when seen in the cold light of a dark and dismal prime time.    

Maybe this is why major organizations like Disney, NBC Universal and  others are setting their development sites on creating better Internet content, and digital poster boy Bill Gates (who is clearly not much of a boy any more when seen through the eyes of a 1080p television set and HD cameras) devoted his swan song at the CES talking about Microsoft's plans to pull everything together under one digital umbrella.   Thanks Bill, and good luck with that philanthropic  2.0 thing!

The danger, however, is that some of the very same people who have wisely decided to shut television and 'old media' writers out of new media movement are also shifting gears to bring their baggage to the Internet and mobile broadcasting.  This means, I fear, that this so-called new wave of content for this brave new media world will in reality be more of the same old thing.  Worse, since mobile devices have the capability of knowing who you are and where you are, this spiffed up content will be saturated with ads and messaging that targets particular demographic groups and individual communities.   

Internet service providers like Comcast have already started promoting this fact, oddly enough with an add that shows a product smacking a consumer in the face and knocking him done.  Sort of like retailing with an attitude. 

There is clearly a lot of work to do as we move toward better content on the Web and on your handheld, involving not only good writing and production but a respect for the limitations of these new media devices and personal privacy concerns.  

Unfortunately, most big name producers and distributors will probably opt to make mistakes and learn from them rather than put some thought into it and avoid mistakes altogether - which means we are back to the land of mystery boxes and trying to guess if something is worth our time in cyberspace.

Online Content the Apple of Jobs' Eye

By David Farquhar

European Editor

Say what you will about Apple co-founder, company ex-patriate, returning corporate hero and present CEO Steve Jobs. The guy is no slouch when it comes to recognizing a marketing trend, even if it is an 800-pound gorilla staring everyone in the face.

He was among the first to understand that when it comes to music most people want something that is simple and slick (which accounts for the incredible success of the iPod and its successors)and is gradually pulling the company's computer business up by the suspenders by doing some really cool stuff with the MacBook and desktop systems - again by making things really simple and developing software that appeals to a generation that is absolutely saturated and jaded by all things digital and drenched in special effects. Who cares what the critics say about the new Leopard OS, isn't it neat the way those windows flip around just like what you see on the network news?

Steve's latest epiphany is to offer movie rentals through iTunes to compete with the likes of Amazon and NetFlix, which follows his previous epiphany of selling movies and television drivel via iTunes. Critics may scoff that this is simply a tactic by Jobs to shore up its creaking AppleTV effort, but we know deep in our hearts that master marketeer (note the Disney reference?) Steve Jobs has yet again parlayed the obvious into something that is sure to pump up Apple's stock to even greater heights.

Is there anything in this world that can stop Apple in its conquest to be the worldwide entertainment endpoint? Maybe not immediately, since the legions of dedicated Apple followers will predictably plunk down their digital dollars and use their Christmas iTune gift cards to rent movies and other media for the next few months. Then there is the coming Macworld gathering in January that always rallies the faithful and the salivating headline-starved press - although the rumored introduction of a Mac sub-notebook may throw a blanket on that furor since we all know how much of an impact limited-capacity PCs have had on the industry (I think I still have my Toshiba Libretto banging around someplace).

Apple's foray into sub-notebook computing, iTune movie rentals and even the also-rumored resurrection of it's early and fondly remembered Messagepad may actually provide a small window of opportunity for competitors looking to get a piece of the mobile media action. In act, the companies best positioned to chip away at the Apple kingdom may be the cellular handset makers - especially Nokia with its really cool mobile Internet device.

Recent studies show that demand for mobile services and mobile devices is at an all-time high - especially among people in the U.S., which has been a bit delayed in jumping on this tsunami. Roughly 38 percent of U.S. consumers are now watching television shows online, while 36 percent are using their cell phones as entertainment devices, according to a survey conducted in late October by Deloitte & Touche. This compares with 24 percent of consumers entertaining themselves with their cell phones, as reported in a prior Deloitte study.

Not surprisingly, more than 60 percent of the these cell phone users are young people (13-24 year olds). But surprisingly, an increasing number of 'experienced' consumers (25-41 year olds) are also using cell phones to tune into mobile media broadcasts and downloads.

We're sure that a portion of Steve Jobs new strategy is focused on these slightly older individuals, who may take him up on his offer to buy and channel movies to mobile devices.

However, there are opportunities for others out who recognize the potential to package content for specific age and interest groups as more and more people rely on mobile devices to take their entertainment and information with them. There are also opportunities for smaller companies to develop broadcast channels that combine entertainment with useful and location-specific advertising and personal info blasts.

Steve, if you are reading this why don't you kick back, take a little breather and play around with that new sub-notebook a while to give someone else a chance to ride the wave.