Archive for December, 2007

Where to watch NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL online

composite logos smallThe Internet is not just a place to get the latest scores and follow your favorite team in the standings. The Web has evolved so well that it has displaced traditional media as the first-stop source for all your major-sports needs.

Except for local coverage, there’s no need to watch TV sportscasts anymore. Pardon the sports pun, but the Internet has all the bases covered — from providing the usual scores, standings, and statistics to rich, always-available highlights, interviews, streaming games, downloadable games, podcasts, extensive season and historical archives, and a host of mobile solutions from wallpapers and ringtones to live GameCasts with Audio. Best of all, there are no timetables.

The Big 4 professional sports leagues in the U.S. — the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL — have leveraged existing footage (usually developed through their “official” networks) to create their own unique content. The leagues flood their Web sites with an overwhelming array of branded digital content so fans can stream games, download ones they missed, and watch clips packaged in so many ways the head spins.

We at last100, being the sports fans we are, decided to take a look at the Big 4 — plus the top “amateur” league in the U.S., the NCAA — to see where their Internet and new media strategies have evolved. Without a doubt, the major sports leagues are using the Internet so thoroughly to feed information-hungry fans that, except for the beat guys covering the local teams for television, radio, and newspapers, there’s little reason to watch nightly sportscasts or read the morning sports section.

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OPENhulu: setting Hulu's videos free?

This is a guest post by Muhammad Saleem, a social media consultant and a top-ranked community member on multiple social news sites.

HuluIt was called a stupid idea at first and then ridiculed for its name. But once people had a chance to look at the site’s lineup of shows and try it out, it was praised as a worthy competitor. The service I’m talking about is of course Hulu, the multi-million dollar online television streaming (video on demand) venture between NBC Universal and News Corp. Most people haven’t had the chance to try the service yet because of the highly exclusive closed private beta but today we are talking with Matt, who has found a way to get around the “closed private beta” problem without breaking any rules.

Most online video services allow you to embed the videos into blogs and websites in an effort to increase their branding and in the hopes of driving traffic back to the originating site. But what would happen if someone took all your embeds and called it a day? Let’s find out.

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Weekly wrapup, 3 – 7 December 2007

Here’s a summary of the week’s digital lifestyle action on last100. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special weekly wrapup RSS feed or by email.

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Top digital lifestyle news

The big story on last100 this week was Nokia and Universal’s announcement of “Comes With Music” devices. Unveiled at the annual Nokia World conference, “Comes With Music” will enable customers to buy a Nokia device with a year of unlimited access to “millions of tracks”, and, rather surprisingly, get to keep those tracks once the twelve month period ends. Of the four major labels, however, Universal Music is the only one to have signed on. In a follow up post, last100 editor Steve O’Hear noted that “Comes With Music” service will employ Windows DRM.

More digital lifestyle news:

Poll

Apple has more cash in the bank than IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Google. “Apple’s $15.4 billion stash is indeed the biggest of the group, putting the iPod maker in the elite ranks of well-heeled Fortune 500 tech companies.”, writes Fortune’s Jon Fortt.

Fortt then goes on to ask the billion dollar question: “So what does CEO Steve Jobs have in mind for all those greenbacks?” A number of options are suggested, including sharing some of the fruits of Apple’s labor with shareholders or making strategic purchases.

Take our poll: How should Apple spend its $15 billion cash reserve?

That’s a wrap for the week! 

Mossberg reviews delayed-again Slacker Personal Radio, finds bugs

slacker playerWalter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal technology reporter known by many as Uncle Walt, got his hands and ears on a prototype of the once-again-delayed Slacker Personal Radio. His verdict: buggy.

Bugginess is a part of any Version 1 product release, and the bugs explain why the Slacker portable player — due this month — has been moved back to a January 31 release date. (Slacker info.)

Mossberg describes the player as “chunky, black plastic” and “dominated” by a four-inch color screen. It provides a rich listening experience: the sound is good, the Wi-Fi connection worked in both Walt’s home and office, and included were album art, other photos, artist bios, and album reviews.

These were overshadowed by the bugs detailed in Walt’s review. “The two prototype Slacker units I tried, however, were hobbled by bugs and glitches that the company must expunge by the release date.” Mossberg notes that Slacker is aware of the glitches and is working to fix them.

What caught my eye  — over and above the bugginess — was how Mossberg characterized Slacker’s positioning of the product. He notes that 100 million music fans know the joys of owning portable digital music players, but to get the most out of these products he says takes too much effort or money for some people.

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Poll: How should Apple spend its $15 billion cash reserve?

How would you spend Apple’s 15 Billion cash reserve?Apple has more cash in the bank than IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Google. “Apple’s $15.4 billion stash is indeed the biggest of the group, putting the iPod maker in the elite ranks of well-heeled Fortune 500 tech companies.”, writes Fortune’s Jon Fortt. While the company’s coffers can’t quite match those of Microsoft and Cisco, unlike the latter two, Apple doesn’t pay a dividend to its stockholders, nor does the company buy back much stock or make major acquisitions.

Fortt then goes on to ask the billion dollar question: “So what does CEO Steve Jobs have in mind for all those greenbacks?” A number of options are suggested, including sharing some of the fruits of Apple’s labor with shareholders or making strategic purchases.

How would you spend Apple’s dosh? Take our poll or leave a comment below.

[poll=8]

Watching full-length TV programs on Internet increasingly popular

abc ugly bettyWatching a favorite show you missed on television on the Internet is increasingly popular, two recent studies show.

Horowitz Associates found that 16 percent of high-speed Internet users watched at least one full-length TV program online during a week, double the number from last year. Horowitz just released its report: Broadband Content and Services 2007. (Online Media Daily account.)

The Nielsen Company found that 25 percent of the 1,599 Americans surveyed in October have watched full episodes of a TV program in the past three months. (New York Times.)

Both studies point to the increasing popularity of full-length streaming video on the Internet.

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Why is AT&T behind Google and Verizon in the open-network game?

Why is AT&T behind Google and Verizon in the open-network game?AT&T, the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier, is dropping the open network ball here and is looking pretty goofy in the process.

USA Today ran an ebullient story on AT&T flinging its cellphone network wide open as if it was big, big news. “Starting immediately, AT&T customers can ditch their AT&T phones and use any wireless phone, device and software application from any maker,” USA Today wrote.

AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega piles on, “You can use any handset on our network you want. We don’t prohibit it, or even police it.”

But as we know, AT&T operates a GSM network. Anybody with an AT&T SIM card (subscriber identity module) can use any unlocked GSM-enabled phone on its network. The phone can use any operating system — Windows Mobile, Symbian, Linux.

Go into any AT&T retail store and sales people will tell you — unofficially until now — that wireless customers had the option of using devices and applications other than those offered by AT&T. As USA Today notes, AT&T sales people will let consumers “know all their options” before making the final purchase.

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XBox 360 adds DivX playback; video downloads coming to Europe on Dec 11

Microsoft to Sony: anything you can do, we can do faster.

XBox 360 adds DivX playback; video downloads coming to Europe on Dec 11After we got over excited about the PlayStation 3’s forthcoming support for DivX video, Microsoft’s XBox 360 has beaten Sony to the punch. The console’s latest software update adds DivX (and Xvid) video playback, which, after extensive testing, Gizmodo happily reports that in terms of DivX-compatibility, the 360 can now “play back pretty much anything”. Technically speaking, however, only DivX 5.0 and above is supported, which luckily should cover all but the oldest of DivX files floating around the web.

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TiVo adds more music, continues to expand its "television services"

tivo music choiceTiVo was once that unique brand of digital video recorder that allowed people to capture television programming to an internal hard disk for later “time-shifted” viewing. Now that there are generic DVRs everywhere, TiVo has been working hard to differentiate its set-top box services from the competition.

TiVo this week announced the availability of two “television services” for its popular DVRs — the music-only cable channels from Music Choice and the use of Photobucket and Google’s Picasa Web Albums as a way for people to view and share photos on the TV.

While neither will change the face of television as we know it — like the original TiVo did — or add “television services” that we can’t live without, TiVo is at least working to separate its set-top box and digital offerings from those of the generic cable and teleco companies. This year TiVo has expanded its broadband offerings with Amazon Unbox, Rhapsody, and many more through its TivoCast partners.

“Be it music, movies or memories, our broadband strategy continues to focus on delivering consumers what they want, when they want it,”said Tara Maitra, TiVo’s VP and GM of Content Services (TiVo release).

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More details on Nokia, Universal's "Comes With Music" offering, and why Total Music is doomed from the start

More details on Nokia, Universal’s “Comes With Music” offering, and why TotalMusic is doomed from the startArs Technica has dug up a few of the missing details on Nokia’s new “Comes With Music” offering, whereby customers who purchase a qualifying Nokia phone (due to go on sale in the second half of 2008) will have twelve month’s unlimited access to Universal’s entire music catalog.

According to Ars:

  • While customers will be able to keep any downloaded tracks even after the “free” subscription period ends, the service employs Windows DRM, meaning that music can only be played on a PC or, presumably, a compatible Nokia device. If you own an iPod or Zune, you’re out of luck.
  • Tracks can only be transfered to one PC and one registered Nokia device at a time.
  • Music can be burned to CD but only after paying an additional upgrade fee per-track.
  • As we suspected, Universal’s participation in Nokia’s “Comes With Music” offering is part of the label’s Total Music plan, whereby the cost of a music subscription is absorbed into the price of a supported device.
  • One the twelve-month period ends, the only way to continue subscribing is to purchase a new “Comes With Music” Nokia device.

Ars Technica makes a big song and dance out of the fact that Nokia’s “Comes With Music” service will employ Windows DRM. But frankly, what did they expect? Despite a very welcome industry move away from DRM for download-to-own (DTO) music sales, there is no way on earth Universal (or any other major label) would offer unlimited DTO access to its entire catalog, in one go, and without any technological restrictions on how those tracks might be shared.

And for Nokia, the idea of going DRM-free also makes little sense. If users can transfer their “Comes With Music” collection to an iPod (or other competing device), then there seems little incentive to purchase a new Nokia phone as a way of renewing their subscription.

In fact, trying to work through the conflict of interests between the major labels, device manufacturers, ISPs/carriers, and, of course, consumers, that are inherent in Universal’s Total Music model, and I’m becoming increasingly convinced that the idea is doomed from the start.