Month: September 2006

Wooster Collective: BREAKING: The Story Disneyland Doesn’t Want You To Know: Banksy has struck again. This time he placed a life sized replica of a Guantanamo bay inmate into Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain Ride. The prisoner was presented shackled and in an orange jumpsuit.

Banksy is one of the more prolific and active artists out there today making public art and public art statements. His site is here.

iinnovate: a podcast on innovation and entrepreneurship: Mike Ramsay, Co-founder of TiVO IInnovate (as in “I innovate”) has a great new podcast series up where they interview prominent entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, designers, etc.

So far they have interviewed Andy Rachleff (co-founder of Benchmark), Mark Leslie (Veritas Software), David Kelley (started IDEO), and most recenlty Mike Ramsay (TiVo).

I haven’t had a chance to listen to the Ramsay interview yet but am looking forward to it. It will be interesting to see what he has to say about TiVo given his close involvement for so many years.

How Will Apple’s Marketing Maestro Marry the Computer and the Home TV? – New York Times

“Asked about Apple’s interest in selling Macs that could serve up the video recording abilities Microsoft offers with its Windows XP Media Center Edition, Jobs joked that Apple was instead focused on melding the computer with a toaster.

“I never get mine quite brown,” said Phil Schiller, vice president of marketing. “We can do an up-sell for bagels.”

Jobs said that he doesn’t see such products creating a big market.

“We’re not going to go that direction,” Jobs said. “There is a small audience that likes this.”

CNET’s News.com, 2003

And so this morning almost three years later The New York Times asks the question, “Has Apple Computer’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, found a way to connect the PC to the TV?”

The Times speculates that perhaps the Mac Mini is poised to be Apple’s anchor into the living room. Combined with it’s Front Row software and possibly using Wi-Fi to stream content to the living room the speculation goes that Apple might have a chance.

I say no way in hell. Apple is way too late to the party at this point and while the Times touches on some of the problems with an Apple strategy they still miss the siginificance of the biggest issue still facing any digital hub of the future. HDTV.

Without HDTV (and by HDTV I mean cable or satellite HDTV) any strategy going forward is going to be dead in the water. HDTV sets have finally moved beyond early adopter status and are now hitting the mainstream. Unless Apple has gotten some kind of secret approval for a CableLabs certified HDTV CableCARD PC then people are not going to buy a Mac for that hot new plasma that they just got in the living room. And getting a CableLabs approved PC is no easy task. Microsoft and TiVo have been working on it for years.

If Apple did want to make a serious push into the living room at this point they would be much better off acquiring TiVo (who trades at a mere 1% of Apple’s market cap roughly) who already has CableLabs approval for their TiVo Series 3 device. Apple could then turn this dual tuner device into a true home media behemoth combining their Front Row software, TiVo’s brand name TV recording, and a video on demand service all combined with both the reliability that TiVo and Apple are known for. Now that could be a winning combination.

But as for Apple making a go at it on their own at this point I think this would be unlikely. It would be a failed strategy to try and do it without HDTV at this point and I’m not sure that Apple has their ducks in a row with regards to the approvals needed to make this happen.

Apple could of course continue to try and sell video downloads, but I think these are still mostly poor video quality novelties that still get watched on PCs or video iPods and not on the family television set.

If Apple is to make the next jump to the actual living room they would need much better quality TV which also makes wireless even more problematic than it might be otherwise.

In the meantime, look for Microsoft to make their even bigger push with CableLabs approved Media Center PCs early next year. Especially with the infiltration of XBoxes in the home, Microsoft has an interesting opportunity to convert a natural desktop PC Vista upgrade into an interesting home media push next year.

Their biggest obstacle of course though will be that they are still Microsoft and, relatively speaking compared to Apple and TiVo, nothing ever works. If they can get the stability of Vista to the point of a Mac though they may have something.

In the meantime, my prediction is that you see that Mac Toaster that Apple was pitching for your kitchen before you ever see a serious entry by the company into your living room.

Google Earth Blog: Huge Update to Google Earth and Maps Aerial/Satellite Photos – September 8 and 9 Good news just gets better and better. It looks like over the past few days Google Maps has rolled out even better maps for us all including getting the entire state of California in high res.

It looks like they are leaving Yahoo! Maps in the dust again before they even have a chance to catch up.

I’ve always been particularly impressed with Google Maps stuff in Europe and Japan. Check out this satellite view of the Eifel Tower.

The Advertising Artwork of Dr. Seuss is a website which has collected much of the advertisments that well known children’s author Dr. Seuss did during his lifetime.

Thanks, Drawn!

Lunch 2.0 — Lunch 2.0 ‘Web Expo’ Blowout at Hitachi Data Systems: Just a reminder that Lunch 2.0, organized by Jeremiah Owyang, and hosted at Hitachi Data Systems will take place next Tuesday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Kristopher Tate and I will be there talking about Zooomr and there will be a lot of other great companies there as well including: Topix.net, Box.net, Pandora, Plaxo, Podtech, Riya, SimplyHired, Zazzle and Zvents.

Here is a map and directions to the lunch. Looking forward to seeing you there if you can make it. Here is a link where you can sign up for the lunch.

Picture of the Day: My Lifetime or Yours? Dave Zatz has a photo of the day of what looks like an advertisment for the new TiVo Series 3 offering to transfer your old TiVo product Lifetime Service for $199.

I’m not sure where this advertisment came from or 100% for sure if it’s a legit ad, but if it is this would be smart on TiVo’s part. Eliminating their lifetime option and offering only 1, 2, and 3 year monthly service plans TiVo would likely upset many of their current core customers and fans and this *might* be an impediment towards getting someone to upgrade.

It looks like the offer will only run through January 31, 2007 which is smart because it forces people to get off their ass and buy a new TiVo and upgrade or miss out.