Versatile Amphibian

I was lucky enough to attend this year’s Royal Television Society Conference at the Barbican. Over the next few posts I’ll share my notes on 3 of the sessions from the conference. First, ABC President Anne Sweeney on digital and the future of TV networks. For a long time there was only one screen and distribution channel, now there are as many as 17 discrete channels to the consumer. The TV industry now has to evolve to enable the consumer to customise their consumption experience to fit into their world. The change is scary – hence the repetition of Caliban’s missive from The Tempest – but all the noises and flashes of light won’t harm you if you do four things. First, innovate . Understand what consumer problem you’re attempting to solve and what the audience therefore wants. The transistor was a great invention but it only became an innovation when it begat the radio. Likewise the iPod/ Phone/ Pad are all great inventions but they can’t be truly regarded as innovations until ...

I’m of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. This week: BT’s vanity project lures starlet, Fortune 500 oblivious to the Internet, Nigeria’s 1st mogul, Google slaps Alibaba & Acer, iPhone best Apple ever Digital media US TV ad spending continues to grow ahead of the market. Dead format, of course. In its death throes. http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/television/data-dive-us-tv-ad-spend-and-influence-22524/ That said, US pay TV households do seem to be falling a little – down 1.3% in Q1. I’d like to know exactly where this Neilsen data came from though – it’s not perfectly clear and may be self-reported. http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/television/number-of-us-pay-tv-households-down-1-3-y-o-y-in-q1-23361/ A presentation on social media ROI by Altimeter. Succinct and fun. http://www.slideshare.n...

I've just finished an analysis of the cost of broadband versus individual wealth in 29 African countries. It makes disturbing reading. Simply put, the poorer you are, the more expensive it is to get a data connection. The implication of this is pretty stark. We may be about to see a rapidly growing digital divide in Africa between those countries that have good cheap connectivity and those without. If we believe (and I do) that digital technology will be an accelerator that will lift education and services in the continent much closer to developed market norms much faster than would have historically been possible then the total lack of affordable connectivity in countries like Sierra Leone, Malawi, Burkina Faso and Togo will doom their residents to falling further and further away from their neighbours and from desperately needed improvements in quality of life. The World Bank has helped many of these countries get international connectivity. Now it's time t...

As I promised 2 weeks ago, here's a link to the second of our reports on the state of the TV sector. This one - Technology and TV: The continuation of a beautiful friendship  covers the effects of digital on TV and was written for the annual IBC in Amsterdam. As we point out, TV is actually the most digital of media and has been an early adopter of technology in the distribution and production parts of the industry. In many markets it's not even possible to receive an analogue signal anymore and yet commentators still predict that technology advancement will be responsible for the demise, rather than the growth of the TV industry. Personally, my favourite chapter is that on digital production. The specifics of this part of the value chain is invisible to viewers, but its impact on the quality of output have been huge. Take the BBC's enduringly popular Doctor Who as an example: a show that used to have to make a feature of its terrible effects, now depl...

I’m of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. This week: Amazon goes Dickensian, films in the living room, social effects of the NHS robot leg and Star Wars takes on Star Trek Digital media I’m yet to be convinced that audiences are presently ready for Zeebox’s brand of second screen, but in case they are, Zeebox have partnered with Chyron to offer polls, sampling and other measurement tools on their application. http://thenextweb.com/media/2012/09/10/zeebox-integrate-new-tools-allowing-broadcasters-interact-directly-users-via-second-screen-app/ Tablet use does, however, increase linear TV viewing, 39% of users say they watch more versus 15% who watch less. http://www.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/2012091224033/ipad-kindle-fire-and-other-tablets-drive-greater-tv-viewing.html Kindle Serials is a really i...

I could - if I were a positive person - be feeling quite smug about getting 10 from 12 predictions about the iPhone 5 launch right (see below). As it happens though, I'm rather annoyed with myself in that the two things that I really thought would happen and mark a true "iPhone 5" - a new name and a new case design - didn't happen. And I'm not alone. Online commentators of all shapes and sizes are up in arms about the "safe" iPhone launch. This is a small problem for Apple (poor lambs) in that everything they say is expected to be revolutionary. iPhone 5 will be a massive success, but it will never have the impact of the original iPhone or of the iPhone 4 when it appeared. Why? Because the iPhone is now a cash cow. A BMW 3 Series. It's the best in class (and the new specifications suggest that it will comfortably remain so), so radical innovation in it is now far too risky for Apple to contemplate. Slow evolution, premium pricing, clear and pow...

This year I was invited to speak on the topic of second screen at the International Broadcaster Conference in Amsterdam. Since it’s an interesting topic, I thought I’d share the summary points I prepared for that session. The term “second screen” implies different things to different people. At one extreme it represents the wholesale replacement of the TV screen with a personal, portable, connected device. At the other it is the use of a computing device as a glorified TV guide. In between is a full spectrum of richness and interaction that tantalises with new creative possibilities and new business models. I like to classify that spectrum in three ways: the means by which consumers will enjoy second screen experiences; their motivations in doing so; and finally the ways in which those experiences can be monetised. Of these three, the means are easiest to talk about authoritatively. Although the category is only three years young, 12% of UK households already have access to a tab...

August was a relatively slow month in African telecoms investment, with $428Mn of new money committed to upgrades. 3 of the big 4 markets took new investments, with only South Africa announcement-free. Non-M&A investments for the year now stand at a touch under $8.5Bn, on track for my forecast for the year of $13.5Mn. For reference, investments announced in August 2011 totalled nearly $1.9Bn, driven by massive commitments in Nigeria and South Africa. 2010 netted a more subdued $80Mn and August 2009 yielded $300Mn. In truth, there's little of major import to report as this month's two most interesting announcements have yet to mature into concrete commitments. In Morocco, the goverment unveiled its 10 year plan to modernise the country's obselete broadband market. This exciting plan includes a national fibre backbone in combination with DSL and LTE last miles to bring developed market connectivity to 32 million people. In South Africa, MTN is looking at selling...

So the big day has arrived. Early evening UK time Tim Cook will take the stage and - doubtless after significant preamble - will reveal the 6th iteration of the iPhone. Here's my predictions for what we'll see in the iPhone 5... or maybe not... Core features: A bigger screen (100% certain). But how big, that is the question? My guess is a 16:9 aspect ratio 4" display with Retina. Covered in Gorilla Glass, obviously. Faster processor (100%). I expect an "A" series quad core, 1,200MHz CPU with a seperate high performance multicore graphics processor. This will almost certainly be the debut of the A6 CPU, probably paired with 1GB of RAM (up from 512MB in the '4S). Expect the new iPhone to mirror the new iPad and exceed the processing capabilities of its competition. No change in internal memory (99%). I expect 16, 32 and 64Gb to remain the capacity options for the new device. With iCloud now firmly established it would seem strange to increase capacity, pa...

I’m of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. This week: robots, holograms, hacking save/ destroy world, Valve to make hardware, Samsung vs Apple rumbles on and authors take on sock puppets in by the numbers death match Digital media The first of many Amazon stories this week: their growing publishing arm is to sell its ebooks on other competing content ecosystems. Another step towards Amazon being fully vertically integrated in the book market. http://paidcontent.org/2012/08/29/exclusive-amazon-ny-to-sell-its-ebooks-through-bn-kobo-other-retailers/ Google have quietly given up their efforts to provider a bid style model for TV ad slots. Turns out TV is hard to disrupt... http://google-tvads.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/an-update-on-google-tv-ads.html Arguably the recent Amazon and B&N announcements a...

To put no finer point on it, Nokia messed up the launch of their Windows 8 smartphone . Despite the hardware looking pretty good and incorporating some neat new technology like a blur-free camera and wireless charging, once again marketing bloopers will almost certainly doom the handset to failure. Here's my view on the big 3 reasons they got things so wrong. The name. Lumia is drab and meaningless.* "iPhone", "Galaxy" and even "One" and "Ascend" are memorable and quotable. If you say you've got a Lumia and especially a "Lumia 920", you'll sound like a dweeb. And no one wants that. Sort it out Nokia. You're not engineers anymore, you're creators of an experience. I don't want a 920 experience, I want a Galaxy of them. The release date. There isn't one. I've said it before and I'll say it again - Apple would have ended their presentation with "oh, and wait, you can buy this amazing technology t...

In the UK we've long celebrated the dearth of news in the summer months as silly season , a period in which the (somewhat removed) heir to the throne behaving like a normal 28 year old man makes headline news. Just as traditionally, the technology industry likes to celebrate the end of the summer hiatus with a raft of new product announcements. With a new iPhone and new version of Windows on the cards, I thought it was worth running down my expectations for the next couple of weeks. Apple are still keeping us in the dark about the date for their much anticipated press conference, which is expected to be on the 12th of September. I anticipate that invites for this event will emerge just before 3pm GMT on the 5th, to coincide with the Nokia/ Microsoft presentation. iPhone 5 (likelihood: 100%) will be launched at this event, featuring a larger 4" touchscreen (90%), LTE for the US (90%) but not other markets (50%), NFC (75%) and the usual increase in processor and bus speed...