Sunday, April 17, 2011

Adding Intelligence To The Biggest Screen: TV

"Leopard" Icons in BlackImage via WikipediaApple added intelligence to the smallest screen: the phone. The iPhone happened. If you can move from the PC screen to the small screen, you should be able to move in the other direction as well. The TV screen is what you meet when you go in the other direction. It is not if but when. And Chris Dixon just posted a great blog post on the topic. Go read.
Chris Dixon: Apple And The TV Industry: the reasoning analysts used to predict the failure of the iPhone before its launch in 2007..... Why do you think they call it a Crackberry? Because the lumpy design and confusing interface of the device is causing people to break into cars? No, it’s because people are addicted to it. ...... What Apple ended up doing, however, was creating a phone that was so incredibly desirable to consumers that it completely restructured the industry, causing a massive shift of power away from the carriers. ..... the last thing the cable operators want is for internet-delivered programming that bypasses their cable channels to become widespread – they see that as the fast track to become a dumb pipe ..... let’s imagine Apple develops a TV that is as groundbreaking as the iPhone was. The biggest problem “smart TVs” have today is that they need clunky IR transmitters to control set top boxes because the cable operators won’t willingly interoperate. So a new Apple TV would have to drum up such incredible consumer demand that the operators would feel compelled to support it. This does indeed seem harder in the TV than in the mobile industry. At least in the US you had 4 nationwide mobile operators at the time of the iPhone launch. In TV, consumers normally have at most two real choices for traditional cable programming – cable and satellite – and two real choices for two-way internet – cable and DSL/FIOS...... Perhaps Apple won’t enter the market due to its structure. But that didn’t stop them in mobile phones where the structure was similarly difficult. The mistake analysts made about the iPhone was to assume the current industry structure would be sustained after Apple’s entry. I’d be wary of making the same assumption about the TV industry.

I'd go one step further and say the bigger screen yet is the movie theater screen, and that also could use a ton of intelligence. Imagine a scenario where as soon as about 30 people - or whatever the margin is where you make a profit on showing a movie - decide they want to see one particular movie, they can reserve a time slot at a movie theater. Any movie ever made in any language available at a theater near you. And so you have all these indie movie makers who go straight to their audience.

And there are screens smaller than the phone. Who would like to add intelligence to my wrist watch? Well, I have not been wearing a watch because my phone already tells me what time it is. But a smart watch could fly off the shelves.

There are pro gay marriage people who say it is not like there is too much love in the world. I say it is not like there is too much intelligence in the world.
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