Digital Lifescapes

Advertising market momentum has remained uneven in different parts of the world and the entertainment industry, according to a slew of latest reports and forecasts published Tuesday. Carat, a unit of London-based media buying and marketing services firm Aegis Group, on Tuesday slightly increased its 2005 global advertising spending growth forecast from 5 percent to 5.2 percent, citing continued strength in Asia that is making up for weaker-than-thought trends in big European markets and an in-line performance in the U.S. The Asian advertising market continues to expand, and Carat predicts that at current growth rates, its size will eclipse that of Europe by 2008. The main driver on the Asian continent remains China, which entertainment companies have increasingly tried to target. Also on Tuesday, marketing data tracker TNS Media Intelligence said total U.S. ad expenditures for the first half of the year increased 4.5 percent year-over-year to $70.5 billion, exceeding the firm's 4.1...

As digital entertainment streams into consumers' lives, they are amassing valuable troves of stored data. A recent survey conducted by KRC Research and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies found that U.S. adults have an average of $1,135 worth of entertainment stored on devices such as laptops/PCs, MP3 players, DVRs, mobile phones, PDAs, digital cameras or portable movie players, and that their appetite for more storage is growing as our lives become more mobile. In particular, "Generation Y" (18-24 years) consumers, a group known for their technology savvy, have an even higher average of $2,199 worth of entertainment stored on devices. The survey results also point to a larger belief within the hard drive industry: As the cost of digital storage becomes less than 10 percent of the content value, it is affordable enough for that content to be permanently retained -- increasing the pervasiveness of hard disk drives. Hitachi believes high-capacity hard drives -- unlike any o...

Telecommunications providers in many parts of the world are rolling out, or will soon roll out, TV services, reports In-Stat. At the end of 2004, there were 1.6 million Telco TV subscribers and it forecasts that number to rise to 32 million by the end of 2009, with over half of the total coming from Asia. "Many telcos start their deployment offering broadcast TV and VOD," says Michelle Abraham, In-Stat analyst. "Advanced services like Digital Video Recording (DVR), HDTV, and additional communications applications are layered on later." A recent report by In-Stat found the following: - In North America, Verizon and SBC are getting close to a commercial launch of their TV services, however, franchise regulations or the lack thereof will determine the pace. - Broadcast TV content processing, on-demand content processing, content security, and middleware revenues for telco TV will surpass $600 million in 2009. - In Europe, the national PTTs and competitive broadband ser...

Los Angeles-based NPOWR Digital Media says that 550 indie and alternative music artists from 85 different labels have signed on to be part of its "stimTV Music" broadband programming service, which is scheduled to launch October 15th. The service's content will include music video clips, artist interviews and live concert footage. stimTV Music is one of several stimTV channels that NPOWR plans to roll out over the coming months (other channels will be devoted to cinema, lifestyle and shopping, the company says). According to the company, stimTV is based on patented software that allows viewers to instantaneously sort and customize thousands of video clips, in order to create a personalized entertainment experience: viewers are presented with a random flow of seven-to-ten-second clips. According to NPOWR, the clips will be designed to give viewers just enough footage to decide whether they want to see more: if they decide they want to see more of a particular piece of foot...

According to a recent study by Current Analysis, sales of Microsoft Windows Media Center PC's have skyrocketed since July 9th: during the week ended August 20th, the study claims, Media Center PC's accounted for 43 percent of all desktop computers sold in the US retail market, based on data from a sampling of US retailers. Current Analysis attributes the rapid increase in Media Center sales largely to a decline in the platform's price: for the first time ever, its average retail price has dropped below $900. The company also credits Microsoft's promotional efforts for the platform at select retailers. Among other findings of the study: 71 percent of the Media Centers sold in the week ended August 20th did not have a TV tuner; 53 percent of the Media Centers sold that week utilized AMD's Athlon 64 processor; and 67 percent of Media Centers sold that week were equipped with a 250GB hard drive. "The desktop market is in dire need of anything that will differentiat...

The new home page for interactive services now provides a mosaic featuring windows showing CNN, MSNBC, The Weather Channel, E! Entertainment, Bloomberg and Court TV. Available on channel 100 to viewers with compatible set-top boxes, the service can be accessed directly by pressing the interactive TV button on the remote. As well as providing a portal to access a range of interactive services, each featured channel can be selected to allow full-screen viewing. �The new format of DISH Home is a great way for viewers to watch their favourite TV channel and up-to-the-minute news, all from one place,� said Susan Arnold, vice president of programming for Dish Network. Developed by OpenTV, the multiscreen mosaic approach was first by EchoStar used for the Olympics and the presidential elections last year.

UK retailers are widely adopting mobile technology to increase in-store productivity according to the findings of the Mobility in Retail Survey 2005, conducted by Martec International in association with Microsoft. Whilst in 2004, only 28 percent of the UK�s leading retailers had adopted or planned to adopt mobile technology, less than a year later the survey reveals that mobile solutions are now being used or are planned for use in-store by 83 percent of respondents. Retailers are turning to mobile technology for a range of applications, to increase sales and/or reduce costs at store level. The most popular uses for mobile applications and devices are access to email, calendar and contacts information (78 percent); stock checking and replenishment data (63 percent); and price checking (63 percent). Retailers are also using mobile technology to record markdown pricing, check warehouse availability and goods receiving/ordering. 49 percent of retailers, many of which have invested in mob...

Nikon will be the first out of the gate and the optical specifications look promising. The Coolpix P1 will have 8.0 megapixels of resolution with a 4X optical zoom. The Coolpix P2 will also come with a 4X zoom, but with less megapixels (5.0). Both cameras can record 30 frames per second movies at 640 X 480 pixel resolution. Kodak's EasyShare One will ship next month and will have a 3X optical zoom and take pictures at 4 megapixels. While all three cameras offer wireless transfer, the feature is enabled differently between the announced snapshot cameras. All the cameras offer wireless transfer direct to a printer, but an extra wireless adapter must be purchased. For transferring to a computer, the Nikon cameras beam pictures directly into the "PictureProject" software. This means users are either tied to their desktop PC, bring their notebooks along or install the software on a friend's computer to be able to get their shots off the camera in a wireless fashion. Kodak ...

According to the New York State Attorney General, AOL's policy to discourage dial-up customers from disconnecting service resulted in bad judgement -- Every company wants to retain customers. But AOL Inc. went too far when it tied employee compensation to minimum �save� percentages. So says New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who this week announced a $1.25 million settlement with the online giant. The deal resolves a probe into complaints that AOL�s telereps failed to honor cancellation requests. The payment, covering $1.2 million in penalties and $50,000 in investigative costs, is the least of it: The company will also have to restructure its bonus plan. And it will have to implement third-party verification of member�s consent to continue services. Finally, it must repay New York customers for up to four months of improper post-cancellation charges. How did AOL get into this mess? AOL�s retention program has long been based on persuading people who call to cancel into...

BT Global Services, BT Group PLC's information technology services division, will reorganize its global workforce around vertical market segments, such as financial services, pharmacueticals and government. In doing this, BT is seeking to use the industrial and technological expertise it gains servicing one client across other major multinational customers in the sectors it supports. In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Andy Green, head of BT Global Services said; "The importance of this reorganization will become obvious next year. There will be quite a lot more activity toward segmentation." He added; "Developing specialist industry practices will enable our global sales teams to apply greater industry knowledge and insight to discussions with their customers, helping to identify and solve business issues. It's a win-win situation." BT Global Services is already organized around customer segment in the U.K. Elsewhere it doesn't currently operate i...

According to IDC, the future of mobile WiMax might not be as bright as its vendors would like you to believe. This wireless broadband technology, working under the IEEE standard 802.16e, offers WiFi bandwidth with a cellular range, but will face multiple challenges on its way to the market. The line between fixed and mobile standards no longer exists, as vendors are using "mobile" technology to offer fixed services, and vice versa. Intel's 802.16e chipset, codenamed "Ofer," will be commercially available in the first half of 2007, with laptops containing the technology coming soon after. This puts Intel almost a year behind other private companies developing silicon for 802.16e, but in a much better position than it was when it introduced its embedded WiFi Centrino platform. In Europe, spectrum availability is a major problem for would-be mobile WiMax deployments, and a solution might not emerge until 2008. During that time, however, cellular and WiFi technologi...

A new study from The Diffusion Group finds that US households that have both a broadband connection and a home network are much more likely to either own or be inclined to purchase new digital electronic platforms. Broadband Networked Households: Profiling the New Media Home, the latest of TDG's Consumer Snapshots, also finds the broadband networked households are moving from single- to multi-unit penetration in digital consumer electronic categories. For example, 29 percent of broadband networked households now own three or more DVD players, up from 13 percent in 2004. "By year-end 2005, there will be approximately 25 million US broadband networked households - a sizeable and influential segment of consumers," says Dale Gilliam, director of primary research at TDG. "But describing broadband networked households is no longer simply a matter of describing early technology adopters - it is more about consumer electronic and media purchasing habits than it is new techno...

Napster announced on Wednesday the availability of its Napster To Go portable music subscription service for a number of cell phone models. The service is now available on smartphones and cell phones that run Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows Mobile 2003, including the forthcoming Motorola Moto Q, and certain models made by Audiovox, HP, HTC, i-Mate, Orange, Palm, Samsung, Siemens and Sierra. The mobile subscription service will allow for both unlimited streaming of songs and a la carte downloads to cell phones. Wireless carriers that support handset models compatible with Napster To Go include BellSouth, Cingular, O2, Orange, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and Vodafone.

The U.K.-based Virgin Group said on Wednesday that it plans to launch its digital music service, Virgin Digital UK, on Friday, offering a library of over one million tracks for 79p ($1.42) each. The service was developed in-house, and will feature tracks licensed through U.S.-based MusicNet. In addition to permanent downloads, Virgin Digital will offer a basic subscription for 9.99 pounds ($18) per month and a premium version for 14.99 pounds ($27) per month. Virgin Digital will be promoted within all Virgin Megastores, which will also sell MP3 hardware compatible with the service from Samsung, Sony, Creative and iRiver; the service will not support Apple's iPod. The company also partnered with U.K. broadband provider Blueyonder, to offer free downloads and trial subscriptions to Virgin Digital. "With a strong music heritage behind us, as a record label and a retailer, Virgin has a huge advantage, and platform to launch a digital service that will become the ultimate destinati...

To further promote standards-based solutions within the IPTV market, the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) has formed an IPTV workgroup. The goals of the workgroup are to monitor developing standards or specifications for deploying an IPTV system, to create an interoperability conformance program for IPTV and to promote solutions that pass conformance testing. With the world-wide deployment of consumer broadband connectivity, the broadcasting community has faced the emergence of a new medium for video delivery to the home: the Internet Protocol. Whether referred to as IPTV, TV over IP, TV over DSL, or Broadband TV, it consists of the same set of techniques that allow the delivery of live video streams, as well as content on demand, to a subscriber through a broadband connection supporting Internet Protocol (IP). "IPTV deployments relying on proprietary solutions for one carrier network may not be applicable to another network. This creates additional development and integra...

In order for the Portable Media Player (PMP) market to reach beyond early adopters, several issues must be addressed, reports In-Stat. These factors include high price points, digital rights management (DRM) issues, and perhaps most importantly, the increased availability of video content from download video service providers. "The good news for PMP vendors is that in the past six months, there has been increased activity among manufacturers and content providers to promote the availability of video content for PMPs," says Stephanie Guza, In-Stat analyst. "In addition, new product features such as wireless capability and larger screens will be available on next year�s crop of PMPs; and In-Stat believes that the increased capabilities, coupled with the promise of more video content, are factors that could kick-start the market." A recent report by In-Stat found the following: - Early adopters will remain the primary market for PMPs this year - The mass market is not...

A new report by consultancy firm Telegeography Research shows that the Internet is growing at a much slower pace than it has in recent years. The report estimated that the amount of Internet traffic on backbone cables between countries would grow by about 49 percent this year, compared to 104 percent growth last year. Telegeography attributed the slowing pace mostly to a global slowdown in the numbers of people signing up for high-speed Internet services. The consultancy firm also said that the Internet was maturing, in the sense that the number of people going online for the first time is slowing, while those already online are using the Internet as much as they are likely to. A stabilization in prices for Internet backbone access has also contributed to the drop-off, Telegeography said.

The combined telecom services market of the 31 OECD countries has likely topped $1 trillion in the past year, with OECD figures showing it reached $946 billion in value by the start of 2004. The organisation's Communications Outlook 2005 also found that the sector was growing around 10 percent annually, implying that the $1 trillion milestone was passed some time in the past 12 months. Unsurprisingly, the US dominates the rankings accounting for $357 billion of that total - an enormous 38 percent share for a group that includes 31 countries. Rankings don't always conform to GDP size - Japan is next with a $139 billion market, followed by the UK with $83 billion, Germany with $77 billion and then France with $39 billion. The report also found that levels of competition are still erratic across countries: the UK shines on this count with 102 carriers, and new entrants taking 16.9 percent of access lines (number one in the OECD) and as much as 64 percent of international minutes. ...

U.S. cable operators and telephone companies gained approximately 1.7 million new high-speed Internet customers during the second quarter of 2005, bringing the total number of broadband households to 39.7 million, according to new research by Pike & Fischer. The total subscriber count is up 12.5 million over the 27.2 million recorded in the second quarter of 2004, and represents an estimated 34 percent of American households. Cable companies added about 858,600 new customers, only slightly ahead of the 856,400 added by the telecommunications firms. However, Q2 2005 subsriber adds are down by 32.7 percent, compared to Q1 2005. According to UBS, in contrast here is their broadband breakdown, by service provider, in thousands. Adds in Q2, compared to total subscriber count. DSL Modem SBC +360 to 5,968 Verizon +278 to 4,142 BellSouth +124 to 2,473 Qwest +68 to 1,190 Covad +7 to 554 Sprint +39 to 590 ALLTEL +20 to 303 Citizens +24 to 267 Cincinnati Bell +4 to 145 CenturyTel +21 to 195 C...

According to Forbes, Google released a new instant messaging and voice chat program, ending months of speculation over whether the search giant would enter the heated IM market. The company hasn't said how it might generate revenue from these services, which have been offered for years by competitors. But Google�s new services hint at a much larger company strategy to launch headlong into telecommunications . In the future, Google's new IM service, called Google Talk, could go a step further than competing services, allowing users to make and receive calls to the public telephone network; it would not only set the program apart from rivals but provide new revenue streams for the company. Google could sell calling-minutes to customers, who would pay for the ability to make cheap calls over the Internet. Many of the company's recent moves support a major push by Google into telephony, including rumors that the company has already purchased unused fiber optic cables across the...