More Bad News for Sears

Times have been tough for Sears Holdings, the company that owns Sears and Kmart retail stores. In the fourth quarter of 2011, which is the season that retailers hope to post most of their profits for the year, Sears reported a loss of $2.4 billion. As a result, the company is looking to raise money by shedding some of its assets. According to the company’s announcement, it plans to sell an additional 11 stores in 2012. In addition, it will spin off the Hometown and Outlet stores. The company also plans to reduce inventory and implement other cost-savings measures.

This is not good news for the company and its shareholders, but it could mean that you’ll want to keep a close eye on sales at your local Sears stores. It’s possible that they may have to move some of there electronics inventory at aggressive discounts in order to raise some cash, and you might be able to snag some attractive bargains.

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YouTube: An Hour per Second

Last month, YouTube updated its stats again. The site now is getting new video content uploaded at the rate of one hour of video every second of every day. That’s 60 hours of content every minute. I find that astounding.

You might think that all this content is just falling into a black hole in the cloud somewhere. (Actually, I suspect that quite a lot of it is, and it probably deserves it.) But viewing rates are climbing as well. YouTube now reports 4 billion views every day. That’s the equivalent of more than half the world’s population watching one YouTube video a day.

If you want to see an animated infographic how much all this uploaded video is, check out this clever site: http://www.onehourpersecond.com/.

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HBO Arrives on Samsung Smart TVs

Nearly a year ago, Samsung and HBO announced a partnership that would let consumers stream HBO content to Samsung TVs. You would have to be an HBO subscriber to access the service, which meant that you had to be signed up with a pay-TV service.

Since then, you could get this HBO Go content on your computer, iPad, iPhone, Android smart phone, or even a Roku box. But not a Samsung TV. Until now.

Samsung has just announced that the service is available on certain models of their Smart TVs, with one additional restriction; not all pay-TV services are eligible. While Verizon FiOS, Charter, Cox, DISH Network, and DirecTV are supported on the Samsung screens, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are among the most conspicuously absent (though they do support the smart phone and iPad apps).

I continue to find it fascinating that the content providers such as HBO are being so timid about opening up streaming access to their content. The HBO Go service is free, but available only to HBO subscribers, perhaps so that HBO doesn’t anger the pay-TV services that provide the bulk of its revenues. On the other hand, this may simply be the company’s way of limiting demand for the streaming service, giving them time to test it out before rolling out in a big way.

It might well be that HBO is planning a streaming-only offering down the line with it’s own monthly fee. The same pay-TV service that currently gets subscriber dollars for the HBO channels would almost certainly be the same company that provides the broadband connection used to access the streaming service, so while this could mean less money for the pay-TV service, it’s not as though HBO would be cutting them off completely with the new service. There is no doubt that the cable, satellite, and telco services are going to have to be nimble and responsive over the next few years if they are going to survive the rapidly-changing video entertainment landscape.

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It’s NOT a Hologram, Folks!

The legendary rapper, Tupac Shakur, made an appearance at Coachella in California last weekend, in spite of the fact that he’s been dead for more than 15 years. He performed on stage alongside Snoop Dogg, including a “live” shout-out to the Coachella audience. Putting aside the creepy factor of performing with dead singers, let’s talk briefly about the technology.

Let me say at the outset that even though I was not there, it appears that this production was a triumph of technology. The creators apparently combined video recordings and computer animation and audio manipulation to create a completely new performance by the rapper. It is impressive, to say the least.

What I wish people would not say, however, that it is a “holographic” image. Just Google “Tupac hologram” and see how widely the term was used to describe this production. As I understand the technology, it is not a hologram; there is no 3D component to the display. It is simply a 2D image projected onto an invisible screen. It’s not clear if it’s rear or front projection, or if perhaps there is some sort of beam-splitter material involved. But in any case, it is not a 3D hologram. When you move your head from side to side, you see different views of the object; you can see details on the side of the object that were not visible before. With a projected image like this, it may look like 3D because you can move your head and see objects placed behind the image, but the image does not change. It’s as if it were constantly turning to face you, no matter where you move.

If you’re too close to the projection screen, you can see a strangely distorted image:

The image of Tupac appears strangely thin from this angle.

This is not the first time that the press has incorrectly named this sort of production a hologram, and I don’t expect it to be the last. But I still wish that they’d use the term correctly.

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Free All-Star Concert in March

Are you a Dead Head? Or perhaps a fan of Scott and Bryan Devendorf of the National? What would you say to the opportunity to attend a concert featuring the Devendorfs and Bob Weir of the Greatful Dead? They will be performing at a one-time-only event called the “Bridge Sessions” on Saturday, March 24, which is a fund-raiser for HeadCount.org. The bad news is that it will be held at Weir’s own TRI Studios so seating will be limited to just 50 people. And the worse news is that tickets are only available with a $1,000 donation to HeadCount.

But don’t give up yet; there is good news. The event will be broadcast live, streamed over the Internet. And you can watch it for free. That’s right: free. Nada. Zilch. How cool is that?

This should come as no surprise, given the Greatful Dead’s bellewether views on controling access to their performance art. Not only did the band not prohibit recording of their epic concerts over the decades that they toured worldwide, they even provide access to the soundboard mix for anyone who wanted to jack in. And then they encouraged people to share their recordings. Did this practice hurt their record sales? Probably not; they seemed to do just fine financially.

And so the same mindset seems to be at work here with this concert. Can’t make it? No problem; those who can will fund it, and there’s no need to get greedy about the rest. And you know that this will generate tremendous goodwill for fans of both the Dead and the National.

This is the kind of thinking that is made possible with video streaming over the Internet. 20 years ago, what would it have cost a band to call up NBC and say “We want to take over your network in prime time for an hour or two so that we can perform a free concert”? It could not have happened without a lot more money. But now we can have a group of people produce a live event and make it available worldwide if they want at just a fraction of the cost.

The world of video entertainment is changing rapidly, and “Bridge Sessions” just demonstrates what can be done with a little imagination and initiative. And I think it’s a Good Thing.

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The Power of Aggregated Data

What do people really watch when they watch the SuperBowl? Thanks to the new world of connected entertainment systems, TiVo has a very good idea. By monitoring an anonymous sample of 41,666 households equipped with TiVo DVRs, the company can compile a map of “live and same-day” viewing of content that was watched at “play” speed on the systems. And guess what? People really do like the SuperBowl commercials.

According to the TiVo results, the Dorito’s “Man’s Best Friend” showed the greatest increase compared with the viewing numbers for the adjacent 15 minutes. Even this was well below the numbers for Madonna’s halftime show, and the highest viewership number for the entire program was the desperation “hail mary” pass that ended the game.

The big take-away from this, however, is not about the SuperBowl. It simply demonstrates how granular our data can be now about who watches what. These “temperature” graphs showing what viewers find most interesting is going to help content producers attract sponsors both for in-line commercials and for embedded product placements in the content itself. This data is likely to become the foundation for new funding models that will make it possible to reach specific markets more effectively, which means that individual sponsors can spend more per viewer in a smaller audience, because they will know what that audience is watching and what holds their interest.

For me, the main point is that the future does not belong to the companies that can deliver the stars and blockbuster content. Instead, the winners will be those best equipped to handle Big Data and be able to match viewers with content and sponsors in a tightly-integrated system. The world of video entertainment is indeed changing.

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