After taking a one-week vow not to use Google,
I was doing so well until the pressure got too much. The bottom line is
Google's results are better because they give you want you want. At the
same time, the presentation is cleaner so that the mountain of
information presented does not seem overwhelming. This makes it
superior to rivals such as Yahoo, Teoma, alltheweb or Wisenut.
Of course, Google has the advantage of being the incumbent a legitimate
rival has to have something tangibly better to replace it. People who
contend that Google's dominance is far from assured, clearly
under-estimate the power and simplicity of its appeal. Google has
become the default search engine. The biggest challenge for management
is leveraging this dominance to gain strong footholds in other markets.
Of all the strategic forays the company has made recently, I'm starting
to get increasing excited about television. The combination of
search, contextualized advertising and television (perhaps
video-on-demand) could be quite powerful. Given this potential, the
idea of buying Tivo
for $1-billion appears completely logical because it offers
Google a way to establish a solid foothold in the TV market with a
strong brand name and millions of existing customers. In the meantime,
it will be interesting to see how Google evolves its video search beta.
Update: For anyone looking for a free blast from the 70s, the Washington Post is reporting that AOL.cm will start showing free re-runs of TV shows such as "Welcome Back Kotter" and "Chico and the Man" in January on six new online on-demand channels called In2TV.
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Mark Evansthe blog - examines the world of telecom and technology from a distinctly Canadian perspective.the person - lives in Toronto, CA with his wife and three children, and works as director of community with PlanetEye Inc. 
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Sunday, November 13
I Fell off the Wagon
by
Mark Evans
on Sun 13 Nov 2005 04:13 PM EST
IP-TV Poised for Huge Growth
by
Mark Evans
on Sun 13 Nov 2005 03:50 PM EST
In what eerily resembles the hype over VOIP, there is growing enthusiasm for IP-TV. Infonetics Research expects IP-TV service revenue will jump to $44-billion by 2009 while the number of subscribers will climb to more than 53 million. The investment required to get this business is starting to pick up momentum - climbing to $4.5-billion in the next four years from $304-million in 2004. So far, Infonetics said a lot of the spending has been on DSLAMs, edge routers and aggregation switches but service providers will need to focus on major investments on VOD servers, encoders and head-end equipment. The Infonetics report comes a couple days after Telus Corp. said it has launched IP-TV (over ADSL) in Edmonton and Calgary following an extensive testing program. For all the optimism about IP-TV, a key consideration will be how it will be different from cable-TV. A $53-billion market in the next four years will not materialize if there is a lack of compelling bells and whistles for consumers. Telus, for example, is hoping it can maintain financial discipline (a.k.a. non-discount prices) to win IP-TV market share. While the carrier hasn't provided many details, its IP-TV service will give consumers the ability to customize their programming. Hopefully, this mean you don't have to take crappy channels within a package just to get "good channels" such as A&E. |
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