Ken posted about Sling Media receiving big funding from a few very big VCs like Liberty Media Corp., EchoStar Communications Corp. and Goldman, Sachs & Co.. In total, $46.6 million are raised and some people might to wonder where this kind of money will be spent. Om Malik has some good comments but I think the entire idea goes a lot further than this.
Take a few lines of the nerdy talk from the Slingbox page.
Slingbox is powered by a high-performance digital signal processor from Texas Instruments, and leverages Microsoft’s latest Windows Media Video technologies to provide superior video quality. Plus, our engineering dudes developed the SlingStream optimization algorithms that automatically adapt to changing network conditions. This means that we can give you the best video quality consistently, personalized to your connection.
Now you might want to take a look at the Triple Play Video from DLD06. Go. Especially watch Rainer Beaujean from T-Online.
Ok, now after you watched this, let’s take a look at what Adam Curry recently said in one of his Daily Source Code podcasts. The big thing with podcasting is that you remove two constraints. Frequence and time. Suddenly you have all the frequency your pipe can handle, and time is no issue anymore as you can record shows that are as long as you want, when you want, and they can be listened whenever the listener feels like it. That is a HUGE shift.
The same thing will be true with TV. You will suddenly not only have on demand download shows/films/series/… on a pay model but also for standard advertising based shows. And you will get them via your broadband pipe, something that is already being developed as part of T-Vision. What Sling Media has created is a box that will allow people to get used to watching TV on a computer and with Apple possibly coming out with a big Mac Mini Plasma TV, this will be getting easier. Now read a small bit from above again: [...] SlingStream optimization algorithms that automatically adapt to changing network conditions [...]
With their solution already allowing you to watch your TV from on the road via a Microsoft Smartphone (in internal testing), there is no reason to not possibly use the entire technology to stream from a hosting facility to that device. Of course, they do save bandwidth the way they do it now, and with a TiVo you can watch what you recorded from anywhere. But in the future bandwidth costs will go fully towards zero, and that will not be a problem anymore. All in all, the solution is already big now, but with the disruption of the frequency play and removal of the option to time TV shows to be aired at the right time, Sling Media is very well positioned to play a huge part in the future of TV distribution, vodcasting if you want to use some weird term that might show where this is going.
Technorati Tags: broadcasting, venture capital, Sling Media, Slingbox, streaming, television, video, vodcasting
Monthly Archives: January 2006
Sling Media Receives $46.6 Million
Google: Do less evil
I have to admit that reading it on a Blog is by no means a confirmed source, but if true, this is funny:
“We even made an evil scale and decided it was more evil not to go in than to go in,” Schmidt said.On hearing that, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates muttered into his microphone: “That’s do less evil.
(Source)
Technorati Tags: Gates, GOOG, Google, Microsoft, Schmidt
AdCritic Interactive – The Call
I just received this video from a friend via eMail. Check it out. The future might be scary. 
Second Web Montag in Cologne
The Second Web Montag in Cologne is taking place today. I might be showing up later in the evening as I don’t have time until after 2030. Wishing everyone a lot of fun and good discussions.
Technorati Tags: Web Montag, puppy
Dual Booting XP and OS X
Oliver points me to this post which gives a good description of how to get Windows XP to boot on your MacBook Pro. Good to know that that’s settled.
Technorati Tags: Apple, MacBook Pro, OS X, Windows XP
Our Distributed Discussion on SMB Marketing
As Bud said in his post entitled The Internet Value Proposition, we are having a good discussion together about marketing and things for SMBs. Let me look at one of the latest points of Bud:
Most small business people do not have the time to do what it takes to build a site that will do well in organic search results. In a largely service economy, their economic engine is driven by meeting people and physically rendering service. The Internet, telephones, etc. just serve the purpose of making that happen. In other words, the Internet is ancillary, not an end in and of itself.
Yes, exactly. Sadly he falls back in the next bit in saying that they should outsource their SEO/SEM. What he says above though is that SMBs are driven by the fact that once they have a customer contact, they make that contact into a long time customer. That’s their business. So what do they need? A customer contact! Not a web site. Not some agency that optimizes their site for placements. They need a qualified customer contact delivered right to their doorstep.
Incidentally, that’s the business Ormigo is in, the company I just co-founded. We are still in the financing stage if anyone else is interested.
Technorati Tags: Advertising, Corante, Leads, Ormigo, Performance Marketing, SMB
Our Steve becomes famous
Ok, famous might be too much but our own Steve Dix has been played on The Daily Source Code 323 by Adam Curry. The song in question is The Girl With The Sunshine in Her Eyes and Adam Curry even had some good comments about Steve. Congratulations my friend.
Technorati Tags: Music, Steve Dix, DSC, Daily Source Code
Digital Lifestyle Days
I am back and it was great. Thanks to the entire team that organized the event and Dr. Hubert Burda for allowing us all to meet there. It was a very good, and very diverse event that made you think on several occasions. If you want to take a look at the sessions you can watch videos of them here.
We arrived at the location on Monday morning at ten to 8 and it was already getting full. The first thing you noticed was that it was a big event and that they really pushed in some money to make it happen. The food and drinks were good, wireless lan stable enough, power outlets there if you found them (actually there were enough for the kind of crowd that was there) and an amazing party. The party was at the top of the Bayerischer Hof and you could even take a seat outside covered in a mink blanket if you were so inclined. Again, lots of drinks, music and even people jumping in the pool (here is why).
There were also some very good presentations, and some stood out as presenters. Andreas Weigend was surely an interesting character, but with a slightly strange way of talking. Rainer Beaujean presented his vision of Triple Play at T-Online via T-Visions very well and I am starting to see that they have a very bright future ahead of them. Once they bring TV a real back-channel, and start bringing in free TV with ads, cool stuff will be about to happen. Ola Ahlvarsson from Result Consulting had a great presence on stage and was wonderful to listen to. I presume his presence partly comes from having a World Championchip gold medal in kickboxing. I was positively surprised by Thomas Middelhoff who seemed to be a guy you could go have a beer with, including some very insightful discussions. A good point by him was that (at least I remember it as being from him) revolution is easy, it’s evolution that is hard, which is really true for his restructuring of KarstadtQuelle.
On a more lighter note, Ted Cohen looks like a younger and small Helmut Kohl, especially when you see him sitting right next to you. He is blogging anonymously by the way, or so it seems. Paul van Dyk was great to see and he actually looked very business like and sounded very much down to earth. Good presentation of what you can do with some computer gear. Gerhard Florin went from McKinsey and BMG to EA and got some strange looks when he did that in 1996. Seems to have been a good move and that is a guy that really understands the gaming business.
Then we had the panel about “The Next Big Thing”, with Esther Dyson, Martin Versavsky and Marissa Mayer, moderated by David Kirkpatrick. You should really watch the video of that one. Anina asked a very good question about protecting your online identity in a time of search, and Martin gave a very good example of the scariness of Google Earth. All four were great and you really noticed that there was amazing brainpower present in the room. Andrew Robertson from BBDO was another highlight of the event and a great speaker. Always again.
To sum it up, I did love the event, even though it was a bit too big from time to time. It might also be good to have higher mixed panel discussions between small start-ups and the bigger guys, which might create some more discussions. Thanks again to Burda (company and person) for creating this conference and the team behind it (including all the waiters, technicians, helpers and all) that made it happen! I had a great time.
Technorati Tags: Bayerischer Hof, Burda, Digital Lifestyle Days, DLD, dld06
Google will miss it’s Q4 numbers
Amr Awadallah posted a great analysis of why Google will miss their Q4 2005 numbers, including betting on it by shorting the stock. I would love for real analysts to do that too. And I agree with him in many respects. Looking forward to the Google Numbers on January 31st.
Technorati Tags: AdSense, GOOG, Google, YPN
Aenne burda award for creative leadership
Tue 24/01/2006 12:14 24012006119 Goes to marissa mayer
