Tag Archives: television

Apple Announces Name Change to App-le

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Apple Announces Name Change to App-le

First Apple changed its name from Apple Computer to Apple to better reflect a business focus that was extending beyond computers to music players, smartphones, digital music sales, and more.

And last week Apple announced a flurry of new products including:

  • iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s plus
  • All new Apple TV
  • iPad Pro
  • watchOS 2
  • iOS9

What was clear from the announcements is that Apple’s view the future of computing and entertainment is an App-centric one.

First Apple created Apps for the iPod. Anyone remember the iPod? Apple barely does. They still make iPods, but they’ve been dropped from the main menu on Apple’s web site and relegated to the text links at the bottom of the page. Then they create Apps for the iPhone and the iPad and the watch. And this past week Apple announced their App-centric vision for the future of television.

What is this vision?

It’s pretty simple really. Want to watch major league baseball (MLB) on your television, buy the MLB app. Want to watch HBO, buy the app. Cartoon Network? Get the app. You get the idea.

Why does Apple have this vision?

This App-centric vision of entertainment grows their ecosystem and enables Apple to make money not only from hardware sales, but also from commissions in the sale of all of these Apps. And as people buy more apps, they lock themselves further into Apple’s hardware, by design.

Apple’s App-centric vision for the future of television is good for creators of popular, quality content like HBO, the National Football League (NFL), Premier League Football, CNN, BBC, and for movie-centric aggregators (Netflix, Amazon). The evolving App-centric approach to television also has the benefit to the content creators of enabling them to build Apps that yes play full-screen video (what people expect), but also to integrate information, commerce and social elements into their Applications as they see fit. The downside is that content creators will lose the perceived safety that cable network bundling offers.

But the smartest, best run content creators are more likely to gradually embrace this App-centric possible future, and as a result Apple’s App-centric television future is likely to be a disaster for cable companies and other television-centric aggregators (Hulu, Sling). Why would you need an intermediary like a cable company when you can go straight to the source?

Cable companies could however try to beat Apple to the App Store model and potentially also beat them to the Spotify model for television if they move quickly. But are speed and courage what cable companies are known for?

YouTube and Facebook could also be big winners in Apple’s App-centric television future as both sites could become the home for a treasure trove of free sample shows, a place for people to discover new content to subscribe to. Facebook has made a big push into video the past few years, making this potential area of growth possible for them.

Apple missed the App-centric transition in music, and they had to go out and overpay for Beats to try and catch up to Spotify and others. They’ve also missed the early days of the App-centric transition in paid video apps as well, with Netflix enjoying the early success. They don’t want to get completely left behind, so they are making their big push towards an App-centric television future. The only question is how?

Will Apple look to create a subscription service like Netflix or Spotify as their App, or focus on promoting content creator Apps (NFL, CNN, etc.) through an App Store, both, or something completely different?

No matter which direction Apple chooses, it’s clear that with Apple it is all about the apps. So will Apple change its name to App-le? Probably not. But, they’ve made it very

clear that their vision for the future is an App-centric one. Will they be able to realize it?

Image credit: mashable.com

This article originally appeared on Linkedin


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Shocking People into Buying Your Product

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It costs a lot of money to make a television commercial, and at its core what is a television advertisement? It’s a short piece of video designed to reinforce brand values and attachment, or possibly with any luck, to drive purchasing behavior. But there are other ways to distribute video now of course, other than buying time on the major networks or the hundreds of cable networks. And sometimes alternative methods of video distribution actually work better for some creative ideas than traditional media buys.

And what do you do when you have a product that isn’t necessarily that easy to advertise in the traditional ways, for example horror movies or ultra high-definition televisions?

Products that in your advertising that you might WANT to shock people, because they like that, in the case of horror movies. Or in the case of a tech product where people are reasonably happy with what they have, your might actually NEED to find a way to shock people in order them to perceive the incremental benefits of what you’re offering versus what they already have.

In the first case, the people behind the new Carrie movie set out to create a telekinetic café prank in New York City to promote the movie:

While in the case of ultra high-definition televisions, which let’s be honest, aren’t SOOOO much better than HDTV’s that people are camping out in front of the electronics retailers to get one. So, companies like LG are going to have to go to extreme lengths to highlight the incremental value delivered by an ultra high-definition television over an HDTV. LG decided to engage some of the public in shocking scenarios utilizing their product (and film the whole thing) to try and show not just the people involved in the pranks, but the rest of the world at the same time, the shocking visual clarity of their ultra high-definition televisions. A great creative strategy, and a smart value translation approach for their potential innovations.

Here is an LG elevator prank:

Here is an LG job interview prank from Latin America:

And finally here is another LG prank in the men’s restroom:

So, as you are thinking about advertising your own new products and services, think about whether or not buying media is the best way of distributing any video advertising you might want to create. And also think about whether or not you might need to shock people into buying your product or service because they believe their existing product or service is “good enough”?

And is your product or service better than the existing ones by a wide enough margin to make customers care?

Something to think about…


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Will Aereo strike the Death Knell of Cable Television?

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Will Aereo be the Death Knell of Cable Television?Somewhere across the vast reaches of social media (I can’t remember where) I came across a small but growing internet television service called Aereo that allows you to stream live television over the internet on any device or even to record up to two shows at once like you would with a DVR – for only about $80 per year. Imagine a roof antenna or rabbit ears on your TV that happened to be somewhere you never had to see them. Aereo makes that possible. Here’s how:

1. They’ve made the TV antenna unbelievably small

So small it fits on the tip of your finger. But it still gets awesome HD reception.

2. They’ve connected those antennas to the Internet

They designed a way to put tons of these antennas in data centers, along with massive amounts of storage and super-fast Internet connections.

3. They give you control of your own antenna

They’ve built a simple, elegant interface to let you control this antenna. With any device you want, over the internet. All without boxes, cables, or cords.

The company has been around for about one year now and is now expanding to 22 additional cities. Cable Television Distributors are of course fighting back against this potential disruption, but Aereo maintains that their solution is legal. The bigger questions though are:

  1. Is Aereo disruptive? Does it have the potential to make people switch?
    (possibly when combined with Hulu and/or Netflix and Amazon Prime)

  2. Will Aereo be able to gain enough momentum to make cable television stations jump on board what might become part of an expanded premium offering?

What do you think?

UPDATE (2022): Eventually the cable companies won in court and Aereo was forced into bankruptcy where Tivo ended up buying them for $1 million. Sad but true. And now we have multiple offerings like YouTubeTV that have not been forced to cease operations – but at a much higher cost.


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Innovation Requires Diagonal Thinking

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Innovation Requires Diagonal ThinkingThe outcome of a back and forth of a dialog on Twitter with Scramray E. Pinkus generated a lovely quote worth sharing:

“Innovating is like thinking diagonally. A perfect combination of both linear and lateral.”

– Scramray E. Pinkus (@Easelton)

The conversation sprung out of a tweet I posted that postulated that when people use technology (iPads, smartphones, laptops, etc.) and television as child minders, that they are actually promoting linear thinking in their children at the expense of the lateral thinking that our society so desperately needs. We need strong lateral thinking to compliment the dominant linear thinking out there, so that together they can drive the social innovation the world needs to fix this mess we’ve made.

What do you think?

Technology as child minder, positive or negative effects on the innovative capacity of our children?

One of my proof points is this article from The Washington Post.

Any other proof points out there?

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