Some thought it would never happen, others said it was inevitable, but the rumor mill is churning out reports this morning that Netflix, at long last, is working with Nintendo to stream its vast catalog of films to the Wii (an overdue move for a console that won’t play a DVD out of the box). But it’s still up in the air whether the service will launch later this year for existing Wii consoles (yes, please) or if the companies will hold out for the release of the next-gen Wii HD.
To throw just one more variable at you, we’re not exactly sure when the Wii HD is going to launch either. In fact, if you suffer from anxiety, perhaps you should stop reading now, as this post will only become more speculative.
What we do know for certain is that streaming films over the Web is the way the medium is trending, and fast. Earlier this month Samsung released a handful of new televisions that link up directly with Amazon, Blockbuster, or Netflix to beam on demand movies directly to the set, with no external set-top box required. Even broadcast channels are getting in on Web streaming, with upstart cable channel Epix offering its entire catalog (which should grow to around 3,000 films) via the Web.
But let’s get back to speculation: How might these companies implement said streaming deal? We’re going to bet that when Netflix streaming arrives, owners of the old Wii, as well as the upcoming Wii HD, will be able to stream movies to their consoles. Why? Because there are currently more than 21 million Wii consoles in the U.S. alone. As Dan Frommer points out over at Business Insider, Netflix has to be weighing the potential impact of 21 million potential customers on the classic Wii versus a current built-in market of zero on the new Wii.
While the Wii HD will likely fly off shelves when it drops (hopefully that will be sooner rather than later), Netflix obviously has less to gain if Netflix streaming is a new-Wii only amenity. It took a few years for Nintendo to build that market of more than 20 million console owners, and it seems like Netflix wouldn’t bother with this if it can’t have those existing customers as part of the deal. Stay tuned, we'll keep you posted on this one.
If you can't have a magazine e-reader that mimics print, you might as well have a print edition that mimics digital. Or tries to, anyhow. This seems to be the driving notion behind the December issue of Esquire, in which about half a dozen pages are enhanced with augmented reality features; hold them up to a Webcam, and the images on the screen come to life.
Hold the cover up to a Webcam, and cover subject Robert Downey Jr. steps off the page in 3-D, offering a primer on Esquire's augmented reality issue while the cover copy flies off the cover behind him. Tilt the magazine and the on-screen animation moves in sync. The effect is triggered by a box, displayed prominently (and a bit jarringly) between Downey's legs on the cover that allows the computer to interact and communicate with the printed page. The effect, needless to say, is pretty cool if not a bit over-the-top.
Inside, a fashion spread on layering springs to life, with a male model bundled up in the midst of a driving snow. Tilt the magazine and both the weather and the model change: the sun comes out, the weather turns temperate and the model strips down into more sunshine-appropriate garb. Even the staple "Funny Joke from a Beautiful Woman" page is augmented; bring the magazine back to your Webcam after midnight, and actress Gillian Jacobs will tell a more risqué joke, too blue for daytime audiences.
The digital fireworks in the December issue don't forget an audience that Esquire, and the entire print magazine business, are desperate to reach: advertisers. At least two of the AR pages trigger on-screen ads for Lexus, who absorbed some of the costs of the rather expensive development of the issue. Both the recession and an exodus to online advertising have put many magazines in a bind. Rival publisher Condé Nast recently had to shutter Gourmet and a handful of other publications for lack of advertising support, and while Esquire has done a good job of retaining readership, retaining advertisers is another story as its number of pages sold has dipped 26 percent this year over last.
Will the digital push help? December's AR issue, on newsstands Nov. 16, isn't Esquire's first shot at differentiating itself via emerging technologies. The October 2008 issue launched with a limited number of covers sporting an e-ink display with flashing headlines. The gimmick was, well, gimmicky, but it's unclear if it did anything to boost Esquire's brand in the long run. In fact, some readers raised environmental concerns about recycling the issue since it had electronics embedded in the cover. Hearst, Esquire's publisher, has been trying to make the crossover into new kinds of media as well, attempting to get its own e-reader to market specifically for magazines and newspapers.
Of course, the beauty of digital delivery to an e-reader is that it is astronomically cheaper than printing on paper and shipping hard copies. Esquire's latest digital foray, while visually neat, was a six-figure endeavor. We're not mathematicians over here, but it seems to us that while Hearst and Esquire hit the wow-factor, they may have missed the point.
Delay followed delay followed delay yesterday, but this morning the NASA's new Ares I-X finally lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a bang. With massive smoke plume trailing, the rocket soared into the atmosphere at supersonic speeds and completed initial phase separation before successfully face-planting into the Pacific Ocean two minutes later.
One NASA official on the live launch feed best summed it up in his post-launch comments to the ground crew: "That was friggin' fantastic. I've got tears in my eyes. To all the naysayers, that was just one of the most beautiful rocket launches that I've ever seen."
The crew deserved the kudos after nearly two tenuous days of waiting for the perfect conditions in which to launch, with the T-zero time sometimes being pushed back in increments as little as seven minutes.
The Ares I-X rocket is the first spacecraft to launch from the Kennedy Space Center besides the space shuttle since the final Apollo missions were scrapped more than three decades ago, and carries with it NASA’s ambitions to return manned missions to the moon by 2020 via the new Constellation program. It will also replace the aging shuttle fleet, which will be decommissioned next year, as NASA’s means to launch astronauts into Earth orbit.
Tuesday's launch attempt was complicated by both weather and a container ship that wandered into Ares' launch danger area over the Pacific. Though today's weather on the ground in Florida was postcard perfect, cirrus clouds in the upper atmosphere continually caused NASA to push back the launch from an original liftoff time of 8:30 to an eventual successful liftoff at 11:30, EST.
Today’s two-minute test flight is important from both engineering and political standpoints. The 700 sensors placed along Ares will provide engineers with data that will help them hone its design. It will also (hopefully) provide something of a proof of concept as the Obama administration considers a report that raises concerns about the viability and need for the entire Constellation program.
At 327 feet, the Ares I-X comes in just a bit smaller than its largest Apollo predecessor, the Saturn V rocket that launched the first men to the moon in 1969 (as well as various missions before and thereafter). If NASA can maintain its schedule – and more importantly, its funding – Ares series rockets should launch into regular service by 2015.
Showing just how unhip being a PC can be, Microsoft has pulled out of a prime time Windows 7 sponsorship of a special by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. According to Microsoft, MacFarlane's style didn't "fit with the Windows brand." How very PC indeed.
Family Guy Presents: Seth and Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show was slated to run commercial free, with McFarlane and fellow funnywoman Alex Borstein (the voice of FG's Lois) personally pitching Windows 7 within the content of the show itself. But according to Variety, Microsoft got cold feet after realizing that in between pitches, MacFarlane and Borstein would make Family Guy-style jokes, "including riffs on deaf people, the Holocaust, feminine hygiene and incest."
Neither Microsoft nor MacFarlane are strangers to cross-branding, though. For instance, Microsoft currently powers Ford's Sync hands-free stereo technology in a smattering of new automobiles aimed at younger consumers. Aside from inking a $100 million deal with Fox last year, MacFarlane struck a deal with Google to create the Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, a series of Webisodes packing Family Guy-style humor and distributed by Google's Ad Sense network, complete with advertising messages built in. But the MacFarlane-Microsoft marriage, it seems, wasn't meant to be.
Microsoft originally entered the deal based on MacFarlane's "audience composition and creative humor of Family Guy," a Microsoft spokeswoman said. But at an Oct. 16 taping of the show, several executives (read: people over 40) were a bit shocked by the content. Apparently, said execs thought for some reason that MacFarlane and Borstein's humor would be some kind of departure from Family Guy's. Or perhaps none of them had ever actually seen the show.
Either way, Family Guy Presents: Seth and Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show will air Nov. 8, but without the backing of Mister Softy, who will push Windows 7 at another party. And another sponsor will undoubtedly step up and fill the choice spot, perhaps a feminine hygiene product.
People tend to think of iPhone users as young, tech-savvy professionals. But there's an emerging consumer segment could be an attractive target for app developers and advertisers: the "iPhone mom." A Greystripe research report (PDF file) on mothers of children ranging from infants to 17 years of age shows not only that iPhone moms make up nearly a third of total iPhone users, but that more than 59% of them let their children use their iPhones.
Much of the iPhone mom's usage is devoted to tasks you'd expect from a new generation of Web 2.0-savvy moms. Nearly all of them (94%) download gaming and entertainment apps, presumably for themselves and to keep junior occupied during errands, dinners out, and car rides. About three quarters download music to their phones and 50% are maintaining their social networking lives on the go. But an entire genre of parenting apps has also emerged, many to help new parents in raising an infant, and some of which are downright fascinating, if not for the queasy.
Aside from live-updating their Facebook profiles with videos of baby's first steps, Apps like Andesigned's "Baby Tracker: Nursing" help breastfeeding moms keep track of nursing sessions by tracking time, side, and duration of feedings, and by maintaining a meticulous record that can be accessed with a few clicks. "Baby Tracker: Diapers" keeps a similarly detailed record of your little bundle's little bundles, even tracking the time between changes and predicting when the next change is likely to be (these two apps can be purchased separately or bundled as part of Andesigned's "Total Baby" app).
Then there are apps like "Baby List" that tap the collected wisdom of other moms to help new moms plan their days a little better, and "Baby Monitor," which attempts to replace older technologies with the iPhone--though using an iPhone as a baby monitor seems a bit expensive, not mention a waste of computing power. Other apps not necessarily aimed at the new parent demographic can also be leveraged to make parenting less stressful. Two different mommy blogs we visited recommended "White Noise" and "Ambiance," two soothing sound generators designed to send both fidgety babies and sleep-deprived parents into sweet, sweet slumber.
Parenting apps help manage teens, too. According to the study, 43% of iPhone moms have kids 15-17. "Teen Tracker" and "iCurfew" help keep parents keep track of their teens during the rebellious years. Both apps send an uneditable email link with the teen's GPS location, from his or her phone, to a parent's inbox, ensuring that kids out on the town really are where they say are.
You'd think educational apps would be a top priority for parents--37% of moms download apps aimed at boosting their youngsters' IQs. But here's where parents need to watch out. While it's hard to argue against the brain-boosting value of apps like "Scribble" that let children express their creative sides, educational entertainment for kids is under fire this morning. Disney is offering refunds to users of its "Baby Einstein" videos, which were marketed as educational but recently found by child development experts to not only do nothing for babies' brain development, but to potentially harm that development. Deciding which apps are educational for children and which are simply more noise can be tough, so buyer beware.
Still, as long as parents realize that the smartphone, like the television, is no replacement for human interaction and education, it can offer a helping hand to tech-savvy parents. As the iPhone mom segment grows, marketers are moving dollars into that space, which inevitably means more and more apps will be on offer. Mommy blogs devoted to the interests of iPhone moms have already emerged (that's how we know the iPhone mom is for real) that offer reviews, commentary, and advice on different apps as they emerge. Greystripe suggests the mommy demographic tends to be a late adopting one--tell that to the digital diaper changers.
In the midst of a review of its advertising creative, Volkswagen is launching the media push for its next-gen GTI automobile with a single, cost-efficient marketing tool: a single iPhone app. Rather than one of the big-budget television and print blitzes characteristic of the German automaker, hype for the high-performance model of VW’s Golf model will rely solely upon “Real Racing GTI,” an arcade-style racer revealed last night in Manhattan.
While an app-centric approach to advertising may seem narrow, the numbers tell a different story. Last month Apple reported 50 million iPhone and iPod touch users worldwide. The most watched television show for the week ended October 18, CBS’s “NCIS,” delivered advertising messages to 21 million viewers (and that’s assuming no one recorded the show via DVR and skipped through the ads). The cost savings are evident: 30 seconds during “NCIS” costs advertisers an average of $130,000. The annual budget for VW’s mobile app is estimated at $500,000.
Considering who VW is trying to reach, that’s a really good deal: half a million dollars buys exposure to younger, tech-savvy, social media connected customers, some of whom will pass the app along, a la the viral message pushers Malcolm Gladwell termed “connectors.” Users compete for six GTIs that will be given away, encouraging them to spend more time playing the game. Meanwhile, built in Twitter and YouTube functionalities promote viral behavior, giving users convenient channels by which to invite others into the game and share their experiences.
Compare that cost/benefit with the $60 million VW spent on a television and print campaign to introduce the GTI in 2006 courtesy of Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. VW pared its costs for the app by licensing the game from Australian digital house Firemint, which tailored a version of their own racing game using only GTIs. And the costs of marketing and PR are built into the app:Some PR and paid search ads for consumers browsing apps or information on the GTI will drive up costs marginally, but word of mouth and viral pass-along are the main pillars of VW’s campaign.
Will it work? Early iTunes reviews of the game are overwhelmingly positive, and other apps promoting competition and recruitment among users have caught fire in big ways; mobile social network FourSquare comes to mind, as does Mafia Wars on Facebook. Allowing users to compete for one of the six GTIs slated for giveaway will likely drive downloads as users push friends to join the race both for the sake of fun and the possibility, however slim, of winning a free ride. With the auto industry slumping and cost containment more important than it’s been in decades, VW seems content to gamble on an innovative new approach to reaching its target customer. We like their odds.
The store that perfected the “big box” model is slimming down. During its annual analyst conference in Bentonville, Ark., executives told retail analysts that future Wal-Mart stores will be 8 percent smaller, cost 16 percent less to build, and run more efficiently than current stores.
Currently, Wal-Mart discount stores average just over 100,000 square feet, while Supercenters are nearly twice that size. The reduction in footprint coincides with an overall shift in Wal-Mart strategy to maintain its supply chain and bulk rate pricing advantages while offering fewer brands and keeping tight control on overhead costs.
"We've found ways to increase sales with new designs, re-merchandising, and the application of technology," a spokesperson tells FastCompany.com.
While Wal-Mart looks to shrink its brick and mortar volume, it still plans to grow. A new health and wellness section launched at walmart.com Tuesday, and executives promised to aggressively cut store prices going into what is expected to be the second-worst holiday retail season in four decades (the worst being last year) while still projecting 1% growth over last year. The chain also announced on Thursday a customer service and support program meant to compete with Best Buy's service--customers can buy pre-paid cards ranging in price from $99 to $339 covering everything from installation of televisions routers to complete home threater home networking systems (service includes a consultation and tutorial).
The shrinking stores will also help Wal-Mart accommodate its strategy, which calls for penetrating more urban markets (Wal-Mart Manhattan, perhaps?) and expanding broadly overseas, particularly in China and Brazil. The company will spend slightly less on new store openings here next fiscal year (between $1.4 billion and $1.6 billion, down from between $1.6 and $1.7 billion this year), but total capital spending in 2010 is projected to be between $12.5 and $13.1 billion, up from $11.5 billion in 2009.
Just don’t expect to see stores shrinking in a neighborhood near you any time soon, as companies the size of Wal-Mart are rarely nimble. New ideas generally take about four years to work their way into practice, so any stores opening in the next few years were likely already in the pipeline a few years ago, and therefore very much "big box."
One question remains, though: What happens to all of those big boxes once Wal-Mart shifts to smaller stores? Wal-Mart has a history of vacating regular old humongous Wal-Mart's for shiny new SuperCenters just blocks away, at times leaving small towns with empty edifices in the center of their retail districts that no one but Wal-Mart could afford to occupy (adding insult to the initial injury of putting mom-and-pop stores out of business in the first place).
The Wal-Mart spokesman acknowledged that big box stores could be vacated--again--for smaller stores, even within single towns. Another scenario: larger stores could be subdivided, with extra space leased out to smaller businesses.
How about it, mom and pop? Want to open up the shop adjacent Wal-Mart?
With an FCC vote on net neutrality rules looming on Thursday, it would be a shame if partisan politics didn't come into play. But who will stand up to declare regulations barring Internet service providers from picking and choosing favorites "catastrophic?" Ah, thank you Texas Representative Joe Barton, we knew we could count on you.
Rep. Barton has written the chairman of the FCC requesting the vote on net neutrality regulations be delayed, as they could have "potentially catastrophic effects on investment and deployment of broadband services throughout the country." To be fair, he could have a point. At stake is the way telecoms provide Internet service to different entities. Without regulation, companies like AT&T, Verizon, or Comcast can slow or block service to certain Web accounts, favoring sites that they have a financial interest in or slowing the content of competitors (imagine how slow Google and YouTube would be if Microsoft owned the Internet). The argument is a philosophical one: exactly who owns the Internet, anyhow?
In the telcos defense, they've invested vast sums in their broadband networks, and as such they feel they have the right to do with those networks as they please. They claim "bandwidth hogs" and P2P media pirates eat up too much broadband, and they wish to reserve the right to slow those parties' connections so the rest of us can have some bandwidth too. After all, they say, networks can't support unlimited Internet; there's only so much to go around, which is why some providers like Time Warner cable have proposed capping the amount of data that one account can consume in a given month, another practice condemned by neutrality advocates.
Those advocates have some sway--among them are President Barack Obama and his appointed FCC chair Julius Genachowski, who is expected to pass the regulations Thursday. They see net neutrality as necessary for creating a level playing field for businesses on the Web. Everyone has the right to the same Internet, they say, and if telcos are allowed to manipulate their services to favor some and slow connectivity to others, the Web isn't really free. In other words, the people, not the telcos, own the Web.
But regardless of philosophy, Cisco released some fairly damning numbers (for Barton and the telcos) that essentially prove that the media pirates using up all the bandwidth with their illegal downloading don't really exist, at least not in the numbers the telcos would have us believe. In reality, the Internet is simply playing a larger role in our everyday lives, from education to employment to entertainment and gaming. As the Web is further integrated into the household via emerging technologies like the smart grid, Netizens are going to need more and more unfettered access, not data limits and reduced connectivity speeds.
While it's difficult to say who is right and who is wrong in this debate, the way it's playing out is downright fascinating. Barton is clearly siding with the telcos, claiming (somewhat credibly) that net neutrality regulations would slow future investment and build out of broadband--the very nationwide build out championed by President Obama during his campaign. But Obama's broadband policy stands to deliver broadband to many places where it doesn't yet reach, including many of Barton's rural East Texas constituents (see how backwards this is?).
The battle lines in this debate aren't just political either. Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon have all voiced opinions supporting net neutrality and its fundamental power to preserve a competitive marketplace. Google's Richard Whitt and AT&T's Jim Cicconi have even been taking public shots at one another over the issue. Stay tuned to this three-ring circus, it promises to be quite a show.
Stemming from a May 2008 Fast Company cover story, contributor Adam Penenberg’s book Viral Loop explores the phenomenon catalyzing the explosive, feedback-driven growth characteristic of today’s social media environment. Join Adam for a brief reading and a book-signing at 396 Avenue of the Americas (at 8th Street) in New York this evening. Check out an excerpt from the book here, or come by to hear Adam explain how successful Web 2.0 companies like Facebook, YouTube, eBay, and Twitter have grown by creating products that customers spread to others simply by using them. The events starts at 7:30; naturally, you should tell your friends.
Living room rock gods, take note: the battle of the bands is on, and this time the arena is portable. Electronic Arts, MTV Games, and Harmonix have finally launched Rock Band for the iPhone, challenging Tapulous's monopoly in the "rhythm music" space currently cornered by the popular Tap Tap Revenge series.
For $9.99, iPhone users can shred solo to the likes of AFI, Pixies, Foo Fighters, and Blondie, or connect up to four phones via Bluetooth connections to create subway car quartets jamming Steve Miller Band's "Take The Money And Run." The game has 20 songs pre-loaded, with more songs available via in-app purchases (a tantalizing feature for both user and app developer).
Like its game room equivalent, Rock Band for iPhone allows users to choose between guitar, drums, bass or vocals, but vocals are (oddly) performed through tapping rather than singing into the phones mic. Push notifications will allow friends to invite you to jam sessions, and an in-game message center allows you to check your bands' status. The app also integrates Facebook Connect, another avenue users can take to invite friends into the game.
Naturally, Rock Band's goal is to take some share away from Tapulous, whose apps are installed on more than a third of iPhones. But it doesn't end there. Activision Blizzard has yet to adapt Guitar Hero, the console game that took rhythm music games to super-stardom, to the iPhone. Meanwhile, Tapulous released its own update, Tap Tap Revenge 3, two weeks ago.
With all three game makers targeting the same audience, the competition should be as fierce and challenging as the guitar breakdown at the end of Beastie Boys' "Sabotage." Try not to miss your subway stop.
If you can't have a magazine e-reader that mimics print, you might as well have a print edition that mimics digital. Or tries to, anyhow. This seems to be the driving notion behind the December issue of Esquire, in which about half a dozen pages are enhanced with augmented reality features; hold them up to a Webcam, and the images on the screen come to life.
Showing just how unhip being a PC can be, Microsoft has pulled out of a prime time Windows 7 sponsorship of a special by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. According to Microsoft, MacFarlane's style didn't "fit with the Windows brand." How very PC indeed.
Aside from live-updating their Facebook profiles with videos of baby's first steps, Apps like Andesigned's "
Just don’t expect to see stores shrinking in a neighborhood near you any time soon, as companies the size of Wal-Mart are rarely nimble. New ideas generally take about four years to work their way into practice, so any stores opening in the next few years were likely already in the pipeline a few years ago, and therefore very much "big box."
In the telcos defense, they've invested vast sums in their broadband networks, and as such they feel they have the right to do with those networks as they please. They claim "bandwidth hogs" and P2P media pirates eat up too much broadband, and they wish to reserve the right to slow those parties' connections so the rest of us can have some bandwidth too. After all, they say, networks can't support unlimited Internet; there's only so much to go around, which is why some providers like Time Warner cable have proposed capping the amount of data that one account can consume in a given month, another practice condemned by neutrality advocates.
For $9.99, iPhone users can shred solo to the likes of AFI, Pixies, Foo Fighters, and Blondie, or connect up to four phones via Bluetooth connections to create subway car quartets jamming Steve Miller Band's "Take The Money And Run." The game has 20 songs pre-loaded, with more songs available via in-app purchases (a tantalizing feature for both user and app developer). 
