GOOG grows up

rffrydr · Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 9:51 am Post subject:

TV fights back--with the internet.

The future of television
What's on next

Feb 8th 2007 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition
The union of television and the internet is spawning a wide variety of offspring
Claudio Munoz

BOSSES in the television industry have been keeping a nervous eye on two Scandinavians with a reputation for causing trouble. In recent years Niklas Zennström, a Swede, and Janus Friis, a Dane, have frightened the music industry by inventing KaZaA, a “peer-to-peer” (P2P) file-sharing program that was widely used to download music without paying for it. Then they horrified the mighty telecoms industry by inventing Skype, another P2P program, which lets internet users make free telephone calls between computers, and very cheap calls to ordinary phones. (The duo sold Skype to eBay, an internet-auction giant, for $2.6 billion in 2005.) Their next move was to found yet another start-up—this time, one that threatened to devastate the television industry.

It may do the opposite, as it turns out. The new service, called Joost and now in advanced testing, is based on P2P software that runs on people's computers, just like Skype and KaZaA. And it does indeed promise to transform the experience of watching television by combining what people like about old-fashioned TV with the exciting possibilities of the internet. But unlike KaZaA and Skype, says Fredrik de Wahl, a Swede whom Messrs Zennström and Friis have hired as Joost's boss, Joost does not “disrupt” the industry that it is entering. Instead, rather than undercutting television networks and producers, he says, Joost might, as it were, give them new juice.

That is because Mr de Wahl and his Joost team, working mostly in the Netherlands, have bravely ignored the totems of the internet-video boom. Chief among these fashions is letting users upload anything they want to a video service—which might include clips of themselves doing odd things (“user-generated content”) or, more questionably, videos pirated from other sources. The celebrated example of this approach is YouTube, which is now part of Google, the leader in internet search. Its big problem, however, is that it can be illegal (if copyright is violated) and fiendishly hard to turn into a business.

On February 2nd Viacom, an American media giant, became the latest company to demand that YouTube remove copyright-infringing clips from its website. YouTube has struck deals with some media firms, including NBC and CBS, to allow their material to appear on its site, and had been trying to thrash out a similar agreement with Viacom. Many observers regard Viacom's move as a negotiating tactic. But whether YouTube can make money is unclear. Last month Chad Hurley, YouTube's chief executive, sketched out plans for generating advertising revenues and sharing them with content providers, but so far his firm has none to speak of.

Joost is also ignoring the two business models seen as the most respectable alternatives to advertising. One is to make users pay for each television show or film they download, but then to let them keep it. This is the tack chosen by Apple, an electronics firm that sells videos on iTunes, its popular online store; by Amazon, the largest online retailer; and by Wal-Mart, the largest traditional retailer, which launched a video-download service this week. The other approach is to let users subscribe to what is, in effect, an all-you-can-eat buffet of videos, and then to “stream” video to their computers without leaving a permanent copy. This is the approach taken by, for instance, Netflix, a Californian firm that mostly delivers DVDs to its subscribers by post, but now also streams films.

The reason that Joost is ignoring all of these methods, says Mr de Wahl, is that none has much to do with the experience of simply watching TV, which most people enjoy. Unlike the download or streaming approaches, he says, “TV is not about buying today what you want to watch tomorrow, it's about turning it on and watching.” And in contrast to the “lean-forward” context of “snacking” on a YouTube clip in one's cubicle while the boss has stepped out, TV is a longer and more relaxed “lean-backward” experience.

Hence Joost's most shocking innovation, which is not to change the practices that TV adopted decades ago. It will be free, with advertising breaks—no more than three minutes per hour—either before, during or after a show, depending on the market. Americans, says Mr de Wahl, are more tolerant of interruptions.

Joost has “channels”, like ordinary TV, but these are now playlists of videos that start whenever it is convenient to the viewer. Viewers can import their instant-messaging buddy lists and chat online with friends while watching the same programme. For advertisers, such engagement is worth something, because the activity proves that somebody is watching, rather than being asleep or out of the room. Combined with other information, such as the computer's IP address and hence its location, advertisers will be able to target their spots much more accurately—all “Desperate Housewives” fans in a particular neighbourhood, for example—and thus ought to pay a premium.

The thing that is missing in this new vision of television, however, is the set itself. Beaming video from a computer to a television is possible: Apple and other firms are starting to sell the necessary gadgets. But until it becomes much easier to connect televisions to the internet, big media companies are likely to “wait and see” before committing to Joost, says Jeremy Allaire, the boss of Brightcove, a rival internet-video firm based in Massachusetts. In the meantime, thinks Mr Allaire, media firms are mainly interested in building their own brands, so Brightcove provides content owners with technology to show television on their own websites, syndicate their shows to other websites, track audiences and collect advertising revenue.

There is, in short, no consensus about the best way to combine television with the internet. Instead, there are a variety of experiments, of which Joost is the latest example and YouTube the best-known. But as with telephony, the internet is unpicking service delivery from network ownership. Joost, YouTube, iTunes and Netflix do not need their own networks to supply their video services: they can piggyback on fast internet links provided by others.

According to iSuppli, a market-research firm, internet downloads will claim more than one-third of the market for on-demand video by 2010 (see chart). So just as internet telephony has been bad for traditional phone companies, this “internet bypass” could be bad for the “on demand” video services being offered by cable-TV and telecoms firms over their networks. But by bringing television to more screens in more social contexts, all this could provide new models for programme-makers to finance their productions and offer advertisers new ways to reach consumers. And so Joost and rival services could end up rejuvenating the 75-year-old medium.
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rffrydr · Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 1:43 pm Post subject:

!Matalo!

Tune in and see what't happenin' with in the in crowd--in those on the out:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexvideo11feb11,1,421110.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
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rffrydr · Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:20 pm Post subject:

More trouble with YouTube:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=180657092&play=1
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rffrydr · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:32 am Post subject:

GOOG now with an island bottom. Yesterday's market rally gave up as we filled the breakdown gap. Holding that gap will be a good indication of the bulls back on their feet.
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rffrydr · Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 11:10 am Post subject:

Adds handy "Archive" feature to its news search.
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rffrydr · Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 10:52 pm Post subject:

It's gang-up-on-Google time. The most popular kid in the internet playground is up against an increasingly jealous peer group. News Corporation and NBC Universal have taken advantage of this. The two media giants managed to corral the other four internet giants (Yahoo, AOL, MSN, MySpace) into a distribution deal that could give their new online entertainment service a huge audience from day one.

The threat of Google's YouTube was no doubt helpful in forming the alliance. Its creation is important for two reasons. First, the internet groups are making clear they want to create a legal mechanism for using mainstream media content and sharing the advertising revenues. Contrast that with YouTube's aggressive lawsuit from Viacom over the unapproved use of content.

Second, the distribution deals give the new service a more credible chance of success. Previous attempts by the likes of the music and airline industries to form online hubs have struggled. In this case, even if the new website itself does not gain traction, the version offered through the online distribution partners could provide a strong base.

The devil will be in the detail. How will advertising be placed alongside content to avoid alienating users? How will revenue be shared with distribution partners to ensure they promote the service aggressively? How much flexibility will there be for users to watch short clips - something that has helped make YouTube a big hit - rather than full-length shows?

The venture has other challenges, such as proving that the partners can work together and that it can lure in other content providers. It is by no means a sure thing. But the way it has been structured, with broad distribution agreements, makes it probably the best shot at creating a legal hub for online entertainment so far.

Source Citation: "Taking on YouTube LEX COLUMN.(LEX COLUMN)(Column)." The Financial Times (March 23, 2007):
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rffrydr · Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 8:14 pm Post subject:

YouTube Awards:

http://www.youtube.com/ytawards
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rffrydr · Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 8:08 am Post subject:

Goldman talking 620 on The GOOG.
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rffrydr · Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 12:17 pm Post subject:

Things are looking up. Really really up with gaga over Apple talk:

http://www.forbes.com/business/2007/04/13/ipod-google-apple-tech-cx_rr_0417goople.html
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rffrydr · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 7:12 am Post subject:

A modest proposal: the top is in.

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=GOOG&p=W&b=5&g=0&id=p12904500542

Does anybody talk about it being to high anymore? Not many open up shorts. The MACD divergence from 2006 will last, methinks.

Earnings still to come and the rally with it. But barring an actual Apple merger, the GOOG doesn't see a 525 close again. The takeovers have been bullish as the company expands beyond it's spider-in-the-weblike base of operations applying its silky touch and starts to generate familiar large company revenue streams. Unfortunately somewhere in here (I say now) as the income gets penciled in the hard numbers will start to conflict with the mythological ones. At some point the GOOG will start earning too much money and will have to be taken seriously. And the weight of that money will be too much for its sticky web of fantasy to bear.

So confident am I that I'm looking to sell call-spreads on earnings Rolling Eyes

We may see that Apple deal after all.
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rffrydr · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 4:06 pm Post subject:

Google beats by $40milllion:

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/04/19/ap3632394.html

rffrydr · Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 7:46 am Post subject:

The GOOG gets civic--minded. Links to 4 States info:

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8OQSQ081.htm
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rffrydr · Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:47 am Post subject:

Here we are again, 500. The scent of the iphone very supportive while the quest to become Microsoft takes an important step: offline.

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22459&hed=Google+Goes+Offline&sector=Industries&subsector=InternetAndServices

Privacy may come back to haunt the company that first, "does no evil."

Am looking to sell calls and getting called short this last vestige of the old bull.
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rffrydr · Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2007 10:13 am Post subject:

"Do no harm" enters the grey zone:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118090785772723061.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Looking for 5pt reversal to, not get short, but sell some calls on this puppy. News of campouts on the iphone could provide op.
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rffrydr · Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:37 pm Post subject:

All time high Exclamation

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=360251696&play=1

520 in the after-hours. Rumours of the split. Waiting for iphone release but maybe sell some call spreads if up manana.
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