Omnipatent v. Impatent

The Samsung-Apple patent war saw Samsung claim a minor half victory in Korea and Apple a major win in the US. The difference in rulings between the USA and Korea rulings may be the difference between carrying a case and carrying a suitcase.

Samsung lawyers are used to rule the show at home: this army of Seoul University Law School alumnis and former judges know all the tricks of the trade. I don't think there was much jury vetting nor adequate preparation ahead of the US trial, but Apple might have won anyway.

This is not about innovation, but about Intellectual Property management, property meaning that you own the rights, not necessarily that you invented something. Particularly in a system where the date of the patent makes all the difference, regardless of market realities.

As everybody well knows, Apple was built on infrigements: from stealing the Beatles logo to stealing Xerox inventions (no need to remind this audience of Steve Job quoting Picasso about great artists). The iPhone's round square icons mentioned in the trial? We saw them more than ten years ago in early mobile internet portal prototypes. When the iPod, the iPad, and the iPhone hit the shelves, Job's genius was as always in selecting the right existing bricks at the right time more than about inventing something new.

I'm sad to see that what matters now is not anymore to have the best Research and Developpment center and the best inventors anymore, but to have the quickest vultures and to snatch the best patent portfolios. The best product? Look at nowaday's rush for Samsung Galaxy. And anyway, the commoditization of smartphones is already well advanced. Apple is only gaining time*.

I'm interested in innovation. The NTP-RIM farce was not about innovation. Interval Licensing suing Microsoft rivals** was not about innovation. Google purchasing Motorola was not about innovation. This Samsung-Apple war is certainly not about innovation.

mot-bile 2012

* see "Apple - the end of the affair"
** see "Paul Allen v. Rest Of The Web : NTP Redux ?"

IPTV in Korea (continued) - until really Smart TV takes over

Yet another update for Korean IPTV*. The market is nearing its second birthday, and the 3M subscribers mark : 2.93M as of December the 5th, according to the regulator (Korea Communications Commission).

Leader KT claims more than half of the pie (1.64M), with SKT a distant second (0.691M), and LGT - now U+ - not far behind (0.597M).

Nice, but not that impressive considering the wide adoption of broadband in the country. But as we saw before, the only 3 IPTV operators have faced many regulatory hurdles... which they deserved as the only 3 mobile network operators.

Note that this trio / kartel created SPOTV, a common channel to lock the rights for major sports. They were probably scared by the SBS revolution in the broadcasting arena : for the first time in the country, one network snatched exclusive rights for major sports events, the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games.

But I guess they are furthermore unwilling to enter a costly war which could also hurt IPTV as a whole. IPTV now claims 30% of digital pay-TV and seriously undermined their cableco rivals, but competition remains fierce, and one new major player will soon modify the broadcasting landscape: now allowed to enter the race, all major press groups are competing for new TV licenses. For the general channel license, Maeil Business Newspaper, Korea Economic Daily and Taekwang Group have little chance against the local giants : JoongAng Media Group, Chosun Ilbo, and Dong-A Ilbo. For the news-only channel, Yonhap faces CBS, Seoul Shinmun, MoneyToday, and Herald Media.

And IPTV set top boxes are already passe : Smart TVs are all the rage, with their handfuls of apps. The next big thing. They're actually quite cool, but you can't even check your email with them. Except of course by coupling these smart monitors with smarter devices.


mot-bile 2010

* see previous episodes, including "IPTV and VoIP in Korea : an update" and "IPTV in Korea: an update"

Paul Allen v. Rest Of The Web : NTP Redux ?

Paul Allen's Interval Licensing is suing a few Microsoft foes : AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, YouTube.

The charges : patent infringement regarding 4 patents owned by Interval Licensing - as the name suggests, an empty shell meant to make as many bucks as possible out of
Interval Research "creations".

In this case, the patents protect : a "Browser (...) With Particular Application to Browsing Information Represented By Audiovisual Data", an "Attention Manager", and a system to "Alert(...) Users to Items of Current Interest".

Now this episode definitely became an "item of current interest" in a sector still shaken by the NTP/RIM battle over patents.

What puzzles me is to see Paul Allen, who only left the board of Microsoft in 2000, claim a leadership in browsers : Microsoft copied all major user interface disruptions from Apple, starting with the "windows" concept, and the company didn't believe in the internet, joining the bandwagon very late, starting the Internet Explorer project two years after Mosaic was created. Why not sue Mosaic then ? And IE for exploiting it ?

You may win your lawsuit, just like NTP did. But do you want to go down in history for that last caricature of Microsoftian Evilness ?

You'd better stick to rock'n roll, Paulie.

mot-bile 2010

YouTube sails away from Viacom in safe harbor

Google soberly* claimed victory over Viacom in a legal battle about copyrighted contents illegally uploaded on YouTube : removing them swiftly guarantees the portal a "safe harbor".

In Lingua Googla, the act of cleaning up the mess is reworded as "work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online". This is not policing but good editorial business.

In other words : Google, the piggyback media, is relegating Viacom into commodity categories. The real media is not Viacom but Google.

mot-bile 2010

* "YouTube wins case against Viacom"

AOL, Time, Warner

AOL keeps shopping at Google to prepare its spin off from Time Warner : Shashi Seth will be Senior VP of Global Advertising Products, serving under President Jeff Levick (formerly Google) and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong (formerly Google). AOL itself shall relocate its headquarters in Mountain View, CA (always Google).

Still mother company Time Warner is expected to get rid of its other "half" : a Capital Group director gave more than a few hints about a Time Inc. spin off, leaving basically Warner on its own.

OK. Warner Brothers (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Inc. - wbie.com ) still have many gems, HBO, CNN, Warner Brothers Games or the newly formed DC Entertainment Inc., a superhero vehicle to counter the Disney-Marvel League. Furthermore, getting rid of paper along with the industry's massive (but everyday more cashless) flow now could land them on a green paper mattress of around half a dozen billion bucks or more (why not from Google, now that lifeless LIFE Magazine archives are on Google Books ?).

TIME may be struggling, the brand remains... timeless. And the Warner group would be brandless : its umbrella has already been torn away in 2004, when Warner Music Group left. That day, Edgar Bronfman, Jr. made a comeback Steve Case will never try - too much involved in mortarizing his native Hawai'i thanks to his clickally owned billions, and in his Case Foundation (basically, a foundation fundraising enabler - fooled me once...).

All major media / entertainment groups need to refocus, but this major is not really keeping a... major. I mean they more into distribution than media, more into production than creation, more into rights and franchises management than brand management. Harry Potter is a beautiful franchise and the final (double) movie will probably break all records but it's not as if they owned it. And Harry will neither resuscitate Warner, nor resuscitate, period.

Don't worry. Warner will stay afloat for awhile*. But I hope they have other ambitions than exposing "Adult Swim" to entertain us.


* particularly if they keep discarding BUs... need a broom with a (Mountain) view ?

2nd Million for TU Media - 2nd country for SK Telecom - Citi JV

June 25, 2009 ? Apparently a good day for SK Telecom PR :
- subsidiary TU Media signs its 2,000,000 th customer
- JV with Citigroup launches mobile banking services in the Philippines, a few months after Hong Kong

The SK Telecom - Citibank Philippines JV (Mobile Money Ventures LLC) is definitely good news : in Hong-Kong, services were more about portfolio management than actual personal banking and transactions - what Citi Mobile Banking (CMB) is all about in the Philippines. These browser-based services shall soon be implemented in other countries, and confirm the operator's international ambitions in mobile finance (see recently "SK Telecom's Wild Hana Card").

But is TU Media really a success ?

Many European players would love to boast 2 M mobile TV paid users, but 2 M is not even equivalent to 10% of SK Telecom's customer base and for this operator, a 10% penetration after 4 years doesn't seem very impressive.

Besides, to claim its second million customers, SKT's S-DMB unit took more time than it did for the first : TU Media was launched in May 2005 and reached the 1 M mark in December 2006.

Indeed, TU Media was in a very poor condition last year, both financially (mounting debts) and commercially (it claimed only 1.3 M subs in June 2008, a gain of 300,000 in 1.5 years). The 700k customers gained over the past 12 months are the result of what appears to be a make or break move by the owner : SKT went up in the company, injected KRW 55 bn more, and offered massive discounts to its own mobile subscribers... to the point that an undisclosed proportion of its "paid subscribers" don't have to pay to enjoy the service* !

As a consequence :

=> TU Media becomes more competitive with terrestrial accesses (T-DMB), which have been free since the beginning (launched in December 2005) : as we saw ("3M DMB subs - SBSM on its way"), that's the reason why they are much more popular. T-DMB claims the bulk of Korea's 20M+ DMB-enabled devices (every other handset is OK for mobile TV).

=> At the corporate level, TU Media is now more a MNO's Business Unit than the initial stand alone operator. The very few people who didn't use SKT as their mobile phone operator are encouraged to join the leader, and for the rest, TU Media looks almost like an option among others.

=> TU Media has been burning a lot of cash, and a sustainable TU Media requires more differenciation, and even greater efforts :

- Technological differenciation is not necessarily positive : in covered areas, terrestrial has theoretically an edge over satellite for indoor. SKT does enjoy a truly nationwide coverage, and propose an in-car access offer (TU Rideon - KRW 11,000 / mo - 3 yrs offered for Basic) as well as a real time traffic service (TU TPEG - KRW 3,000 / mo), but T-DMB is very popular for buses and coaches.

- Content and added value services remain key, and SKT will not always surf on such events as the Beijing Olympics, a major boost for subscriptions last year (the whole population was hooked and literally always on one way / media or another)... but not very differentiating since several broadcasters offered the same images (SBS clinched the exclusive TV rights for the next Olympic Games). The only "paid service" operator could try and lock some key rights to pimp up its own premium channels TU Entertainment and TU Sports (both available through the TU Select service : 1 channel for KRW 2,000 / mo, 2 for 3,000, 3 for 4,000). Other premium services feature TUBOX (movies PPV for krw 1,000 or 1,500 apiece) and PREMIUM 19+ (adult for krw 3,000 / mo or 1,200 for 2 days).

Still now, SKT seems to be as much pushing the service as trying to pull it out of a ditch. The technological landscape keeps evolving and in 2012, fixed and mobile broadband will reach respectly 1 Gbps and 10 Mbps. Typically, SKT is investing massively in optic cabling (from 5,000 km to 88,000 km) through SK Networks.

But mobile TV has found a public anyway, and SK Telecom is not the kind of player to abandon leadership easily. Particularily in such a key vertical.

So it brought along TU Media in its trials in Thailand, so...

... not to be discontinued yet.

But stay tuned.


* With TU Media, you pay only for subscription charges. Neither for traffic nor for content, except for movies on demand (NB: these days, KRW 1,000 is about USD 0.78) :
- Basic rates are KRW 6,000 for TU Slim (9 TV channels + 16 audio), idem for TU English (10 TV + 16), and KRW 11,000 for TU Basic (unlimited 21 TV + 16 audio)
- SKT customers enjoy a 6,000 discount on basic rates, which sets Basic at 5,000... and Slim and English services at zero

Amazon to Authors Guild : "Read My Lips - no new taxes" - Microsoft goes Intel

The WSJ pointed out a potential legal battle around the Kindle ("New Kindle Audio Feature Causes a Stir" - 20090210) : Authors Guild's Paul Aiken denounces the new text-to-speech feature (see "Kindle 2 v. Print") as a copyright law infringement : "They don't have the right to read a book out loud. That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law."

Amazon should know : it owns Audible.com, an audiobook shop which allows downloads for every platform. But today on Amazon.com, the link to downloads on the Audible FAQ page leads to the Kindle homepage. Business is business.

Where does audio book start and audio enabler end ?

The computerized reading of an article cannot be compared to a well edited audiobook. The user experience is generally painful, and if you can get the idea of a text, it is not as if someone actually read it to you*. Text-to-speech media only makes sense for practical reasons (ie you are visually impaired, or you don't have a divergent strabismus bad enough to drive and read your e-mail at the same time).

Let's consider an article you downloaded for 10c on Kindle. You shouldn't have to pay more if you listen to it through the device's text-to-speech enabler, a mere alternative way of accessing the information you paid for. But if the text-to-speech version of the article is say a mp3 file with a life of its own, then there is a DRM issue.

No DRM issue for Stephen King : ever the early adopter for innovative distribution channels, the author proposed "Ur" exclusively on Kindle.

Meanwhile, another champion of the late XXth century seems less successful in embracing the new millenium : Microsoft's lack of vision is clearly becoming an embarrassment, and its latest move in retailing echoes more Intel's admission of failure than Apple's (over)hyped extravaganzas.


* the only case where text-to-speech beats the real thing is for my articles : some can be downloaded in text-to-speech version, and they are as nonsensical to the ear as to the eye, but at least the computerized female voice sounds much sexier than my own (not exactly your James Earl Jones, Barack Obama, or Morgan Freeman... rather inaudible dot com).

FT, Telia, Sonera - back to the nineties

Didier Lombard clearly prefers dealing with former CNET coopetitors rather than coping with entertainers or content providers, especially after the departure of Quillot for Lagardere Group.

The Telia-Sonera opportunity looks much prettier than Alitalia for Air France - KLM. Of course, Scandinavia is no more leading innovation in mobile as it did in the early nineties. And Nokia's favorite lab Sonera didn't survive the change of scale of the industry. And overall this deal doesn't look like a major disruption for FT which recently claimed such emerging markets as Africa were priorities.

Telia-Sonera will strengthten FT in Northern Europe and open new East Block opportunities. It's also an interesting entry point for Scandinavian silicon valleys, but FT already owns centers in the region, local start-ups don't need local MNOs to go international, and the Orange brand doesn't necessarily need Orange as a MNO. The fact is competition is much tougher in the Asia Pacific region where FT also owns R&D centers but no networks.

This deal would only make FT an even more powerful European and "tech / IT" player, retarding the overall evolution of its business model, whilst Orange World needs contents. Orange did invest a lot in digital rights and multiaccess contents in France, but the strategy demands a lot of money, especially when you intend to have a global reach.

Canal+ can made fun of this new "mini TPS" (deals with Warner and the French Soccer Federation), Orange is a small national competitor on its core business, but the Canal+ part of Orange is only a side dish for that major multiaccess multiservice provider.

Vivendi is feeling the heat and starting to leverage on Streamezzo, its JV with Vodafone : neuf cegetel (now back to SFR, another Streamezzo platform user) just launched everyworld.fr. As the name tells us, it is suppose to bring you a less monochromous world Orange World. There, you can hand pick your apps and follow them on any device. Which reminds me of BLOKKS and BRIKKS. A nice looking system where a friendly UI... but back then there was no broadband access on one end and no content on the other. Framfab Labs did that and guess what ? They were from Sweden... and the late nineties (definitely pre-9/11).

Next thing you know, Orange will get the exclusivity for Bjorn Borg's games.

Orange has its rights, Orange has it right

Two good points for Orange :

- a greater share of French soccer rights : beyond the mobile rights it already earned in the previous contest, VOD and saturday night games should prove great teasers for the other sides of its quad play offers. Orange Sports is likely to become a better known and respected brand.

- a strategical partnership with Samsung for satellite TV broadcasting (DTH, probably via Eutelsat's Hotbird, but not on a wire) : 1 to 1.5 million sets (PVR + HD tuner) are expected from the begining. UK, Poland and Spain could follow France.

If Canal+ secured its lion's share in both soccer rights and satellite accesses, Vivendi is definitely facing a much tougher challenger...

... and all three French MNOs are now enjoying a strong TV flavor to better face a potential new entrant on their core market (see "3G license part III - France's fourth wedding or a funeral ?"- 20070309).

LocationFree TV by Sony - headaches for broadcasters

You just purchased the rights for say, the UEFA Champions League for the whole United Kingdom. Unfortunately, thanks to such remote TV concepts as Sony's LocationFree TV, you cannot make sure every viewer in Spain uses your channel.
And don't you "It's-OK-for-me" me ; it's not as if the viewer watches your anyway free program along with your so profitable ads : this roamer actually enjoys the service he paid for in his home country, seamlessly and furthermore, YOUlessly.
You may not know it but parts of your revenue may already be literally streaming away from you, and the beauty of it is there's not much you can do (unless Big Medias Inc manage to rule Internet 2.0).
There is an international loophole similar to the one cellcos suffered with termination charges a long while ago. You want to keep an eye on the lunatics locking a few rights for the Tuvalu or Bermuda audiences.

La3 Live - Berlin or Bust - Aussie Yield Management

Remember when 3 snatched the mobile rights for the 2006 World Cup ? HWL's unit certainly didn't get all its money back but its PR teams make sure they made the most of it, even where they didn't pay. Some feed back from 3 World Cup participants : England, Italy and Australia.

• 3 UK claimed 3.6M viewings for its World Cup mobile TV channels during the competition. That's a 61% increase vs May and an average 106,000 per day but also, less impressively, the equivalent of one viewing per customer (3.5M overall). According to the operator, two programs proved quite successful : World Cup Highlights lured enough people everyday to fill Highbury (38,500 seats - make that one third of the total) and Berlin or Bust did 17.5% of the traffic.
  The most popular World Cup TV highlights were about England's glorious victories against the World's top 3 teams (Trinidad & Tobago, Paraguay and Equador), Zidane's infamous nod on Materazzi, and obviously the most important Becks-free game (Spain vs Ukraine - how many 3 handsets for the Rafael Benitez squad in Liverpool ?). The Berlin or Bust program was specifically designed for the event and users didn't have to pay anything to view it... well anything but 30 second ads for Canon, thanks to 3's marketing partner 4th Screen Advertising.
  In order to keep the show rolling and do better than the English team (no Berlin, just bust and crack some nuts), 3 offered through its Pilot Pitch unit a prize for the best mobile TV concept : TV producers can earn up to £50k for the funding of a pilot.
  -
  
• In Italia, Tre bet on DVB-H technology with the usual suspect (Nokia). La3 Live and its 9 channels were launched on June the 5th, right before the World Cup. The daily costs depends on the duration of the formula : 3 euros if by the day, 1.5 euros if by the week, 50c if by the semester. 3 expect 20% of the pop to use mobile TV by 2010 and targets 500,000 users for La3 Live by the end of the year. After 6 weeks of operation closely linked to the major sports event of the year, the cellco claims 110,000 users, and only give few insights about usage patterns (mostly outdoors, 40% of the time during office hours).
  -
• In Australia, 3 used the World Cup as a perfect yield management tool for its network : the games were played late at night and for AUS$ 8, you could have unlimited WC packages (videos, highlights and scores). On June 21st, 3 claimed 300,000 views after 12 days of competition and right before Australia-Croatia. Sessions lasted an average 6 mn, but some watched the whole game vs Japan... I hope none of these happy fews enjoyed a battery failure right before the Hiddink Boys' late come back.
  

Note that during the competition, 3 knotted a partnership with Yahoo!, who happens to be the FIFA's top internet partner.

From Couch Potatoes to French Fries - World Cup and Giant Screens - the new mass media

Flat screens didn't wait for the World Cup to defeat old cathodic tubes, but the clear winner of the competition could be the Giant Screen.
TV operators now enjoy new channels and propose an extreme customer experience : as the main public media, TV follows the event down to the streets and stadia and while couch potatoes remain stuck on their sofas, masses now stand up in public places like French Fries in cornets. The phenomenon even overshadowed such traditional semi-private diffusion sites as restaurants and bars.
Giant screens really became mainstream during the 2002 World Cup in Korea, when millions would hit the streets to follow the great campaign of the Taeguk Warriors. Back in 1998, public events would just gather a few thousands souls (ie in front of Paris' city hall). For the 2006 edition, which took place over 1,000 kms away, Parisians would flock by tens of thousands in the Parc des Princes, Jean-Bouin and Charlety stadia. Simultaneously. In a city where organizers traditionally avoid cannibalization among sportive / cultural events. And Germany itself enjoyed a new phenomenon : hundreds of thousands of ticketless foreign supporters took their cars, trains and planes just to join these giant screen parties (and that beer, too, maybe...).
Under such conditions, the battle between smaller screens (PC vs TV) looks almost trivial... and the very little screens have to position themselves a new way. Handsets can help the TVless supporter following games live or goal by goal, but they also remain the personal tool of individuals as well as small group of users for coping with a mass of supporters located either on the same spot or accross the globe. I guess by 2010 cellcos will package some solutions for such public game sessions the way they do now for music concerts.
During this World Cup, they noticed a very weak traffic during the games, but incredibly hot flashes during the breaks and at the end of the games, for voice as well as for data. For them, here lies the dilemma : if I get the rights for the event I have to invest heavily in order to cope with time and space peaks, and if I don't get them my network is as good as dead during one month...

Digital rights and sports wrongs

Netcos, telcos, cellcos, ISPs... Look at them fight for the rights to broadcast the 2006 FIFA World Cup and other major sports events. Did they only read the labels beforehand ? Did they even check what came in the package under the nice wraps ?
Partners and official sponsors are associated to the successes and failures, the world records as well as the criminal ones. Eventjackings by terrorists ? I'll take it. A Julifest project by German and Polish neo-Nazis ? On the house. Athletes on steroïds ? Don't mention it (official MLB broadcasters ESPN don't : actually, they will even air a 10-part series on the rise and rise of pristine Barry Bonds...).
Much food for thought, a lot of trash for sewers, but as an accomplice, you cannot join the bashing crew.
Sir Ruppert found the right angle. As usual, it's not the moral one : after joining News Corp, the MySpace community kind of turned into a web tabloïd for the masses by the masses. Because bashing became the new National Pastime, here's your DYI O'Reilly Factor, your own ultimate real-TV-over-you-name-it.
MySpace Mobile will be launched at about the same time as ESPN mobile*. On the same Sprint 3G EV-DO network. Expect a full coverage of the World Series.

* see "MySpace Mobile On Helio with Hero and Kickflip" (20060220) and "SK-Earthlink - postponing and smartcasting" (20051021)