Absolutely inspiring... This is tapping the true potential of India. The picture on their web site sums it up the best...
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
DesiCrew... Rural BPO... Fantastic Story
http://specials.rediff.com/money/2007/nov/29sld1.htm
Absolutely inspiring... This is tapping the true potential of India. The picture on their web site sums it up the best...
Absolutely inspiring... This is tapping the true potential of India. The picture on their web site sums it up the best...
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Web videos on TV
News that trickled through yesterday... TiVO is now bringing youtube videos on TV... One of those many "over the top" services that cable and telco providers have been extremely wary off...
While Apple TV has had this for a while, this announcement I thought was significant since TiVO has a much larger user base in the US. Google has been able to do very little in terms turning the youtube acquisition to hard revenue except the standard web ads and hence, this presents a much more viable avenue for Google to monetize Youtube. If this takes off, I can see a Youtube version or APIs for providers who have a active link to the internet from their deployed set top boxes. This could include IPTV providers in the US, Europe, Japan or even those satellite providers who have deployed hybrid boxes with a port at the back for connecting the box to the user's broadband line. It could even include the likes of SlingBox and Hava.
The concern though is going to be picture quality. As it is, the likes of Youtube downconvert the video to lower resolutions to fit within a 10MB size limit to save storage space. Having been part of an experiment myself where this video was played on TV using a Set Top Box, I can say that on TV screen, these videos look pretty bad. Given the compression of video affects video with a lot of motion a lot more, sports clips and action movies look especially very poor on TV. Youtube and other such website may have to spend more on storing higher quality video to improve viewer experience, which is going to be critical since High Definition is beginning to set new benchmarks in video quality.
That said, the price of storage will be a small price to pay for if the business model affords video sharing websites to make money out of all this content. With recent news about Youtube sharing ad revenue with the uploader of the video, opening up the living room TV for those ADs will get a lot in the user community excited. This has the potential to get to the point where one day, you may be able to create you own channel and broadcast it around the world to everyone's TV (and even possibly make ad/subscription revenue out of the same).
While Apple TV has had this for a while, this announcement I thought was significant since TiVO has a much larger user base in the US. Google has been able to do very little in terms turning the youtube acquisition to hard revenue except the standard web ads and hence, this presents a much more viable avenue for Google to monetize Youtube. If this takes off, I can see a Youtube version or APIs for providers who have a active link to the internet from their deployed set top boxes. This could include IPTV providers in the US, Europe, Japan or even those satellite providers who have deployed hybrid boxes with a port at the back for connecting the box to the user's broadband line. It could even include the likes of SlingBox and Hava.
The concern though is going to be picture quality. As it is, the likes of Youtube downconvert the video to lower resolutions to fit within a 10MB size limit to save storage space. Having been part of an experiment myself where this video was played on TV using a Set Top Box, I can say that on TV screen, these videos look pretty bad. Given the compression of video affects video with a lot of motion a lot more, sports clips and action movies look especially very poor on TV. Youtube and other such website may have to spend more on storing higher quality video to improve viewer experience, which is going to be critical since High Definition is beginning to set new benchmarks in video quality.
That said, the price of storage will be a small price to pay for if the business model affords video sharing websites to make money out of all this content. With recent news about Youtube sharing ad revenue with the uploader of the video, opening up the living room TV for those ADs will get a lot in the user community excited. This has the potential to get to the point where one day, you may be able to create you own channel and broadcast it around the world to everyone's TV (and even possibly make ad/subscription revenue out of the same).
Saturday, January 26, 2008
net neutrality...
Recently one piece of news that caught my eye was that of time warner's plans to introduce metered billing for broadband. Being in India, any broadband user should be pretty familiar with the ultra low data caps (for ultra low prices of course). My connection has a 1.5G cap which I just tip over every month when I am not on vacation. Its a different story when I am on vacation. But it serves the purpose for me 11 out of 12 months a year.
But its a different ball game in the US. With the likes of Apple TV, xbox, vudu and TiVO bypassing the traditional video delivery path of cable companies and telcos, there is a real threat to the age old cable digital TV or the new age IPTV services on offer. Not a real threat at the moment primarily because the content on broadcast or IPTV is still way more in demand but telcos and cable companies do certainly see the threat coming.
Seen in this context, the announcement from Time Warner gains a lot of significance. Metered billing beyond a certain data cap can make a lot of these "over the top" services way more expensive than they are today. On the other hand, the on demand content that the provider himself offers will become more attractive price-wise. We are most likely to see the hue and cry about net neutrality come up again.
While a service provider like Time Warner may have to do this to cover for all the additional network maintenance costs, doubting thomas' will not always agree that there is no anti-competitive behaviour. Will certainly be interesting to see how this develops. Exclusive content deals like the NFL Sunday Ticket in the US may get to become more significant but if every cable, telco and "over the top" service provider starts striking these deals, the end user may have to bear the brunt, either paying for multiple such services or losing out on the chance to view the content.
A related comment: http://www.shellypalmermedia.com/2008/01/23/time-warner-metered-broadband-billing-is-not-the-answer/
But its a different ball game in the US. With the likes of Apple TV, xbox, vudu and TiVO bypassing the traditional video delivery path of cable companies and telcos, there is a real threat to the age old cable digital TV or the new age IPTV services on offer. Not a real threat at the moment primarily because the content on broadcast or IPTV is still way more in demand but telcos and cable companies do certainly see the threat coming.
Seen in this context, the announcement from Time Warner gains a lot of significance. Metered billing beyond a certain data cap can make a lot of these "over the top" services way more expensive than they are today. On the other hand, the on demand content that the provider himself offers will become more attractive price-wise. We are most likely to see the hue and cry about net neutrality come up again.
While a service provider like Time Warner may have to do this to cover for all the additional network maintenance costs, doubting thomas' will not always agree that there is no anti-competitive behaviour. Will certainly be interesting to see how this develops. Exclusive content deals like the NFL Sunday Ticket in the US may get to become more significant but if every cable, telco and "over the top" service provider starts striking these deals, the end user may have to bear the brunt, either paying for multiple such services or losing out on the chance to view the content.
A related comment: http://www.shellypalmermedia.com/2008/01/23/time-warner-metered-broadband-billing-is-not-the-answer/
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