My Fantasy League Pick for Yahoo's Board: Steve Jobs

Over 11 years ago, after seeing one of the release candidates for Windows 98, I wrote “The browser wars are over, Microsoft won.” I took a lot of heat from the Netscape and Mac faithful, but at the time it was obvious that whatever the default was in the late 90s was going to win.

That was one prediction that I got right. But saying “the search wars are over, Google won” isn’t a prediction, but rather a statement of what already happened. Here’s a screen shot from a recent day’s worth of search traffic for TVbytheNumbers:

If search is the focus, combining Yahoo and Microsoft doesn’t really make up much ground. I’m mostly for Yahoo staying a separate entity because it has such massive scale overall. It’s lagging in search, but its other properties ranging from mail, to MyYahoo, to Yahoo sports perform very well. My theory, boneheaded as it may be, is with that much scale you ought to be able to figure out how to make more money. The one problem I have with the combination isn’t really Microsoft, it’s that combining the companies doesn’t seem like it will wind up increasing the scale that much.

Today Fred Wilson posted a list of board members he’d like to see in light of Carl Ichan’s recommendations. To be honest, I’d rather see Mark Cuban than a lot of Fred’s recommendations. Though I loved Fred’s pick of Bill Gross, overall there are too many deep-thinking smart people on his list. I’m not sure anything ever gets accomplished when you throw that many deep thinkers in a room. And with the mix of people Fred recommends I’d worry about the testosterone warrior mentality of making Google the target of all strategy. I think that would be a bad strategy. I’ve seen what happens when companies make their major competitor the sole focus, and it doesn’t usually work out well.

The one guy I’d really like to see on Yahoo’s board if we’re doing fantasy league is Apple’s Steve Jobs. Think about it. Apple stopped making Microsoft its direct focus, all doing so got it was the need to ask for Microsoft’s help to bail it out! Which Microsoft did.

It took a while, but then came the iPod and now Mac and its OS are very steadily gaining share too. The Apple Store? A retail hit! The Microsoft Store? Not so much. Jobs seemingly knows how to ride these things out better than anyone. Marc Andreesen may be a great product guy and Tim O’Reilly may be a genius at seeing the future. But Jobs has the practical experience of actually surviving something similar.

Disappointed in Steve Jobs

I spent about four hours today screwing around with trying to be able to paste tables from Excel into WordPress directly, with no luck whatsoever really, and another four hours or so trying to figure out some CSS and PHP related stuff in WordPress (I was a little luckier on that front, but not much really). I don't want to talk trash about WordPress because it blows my mind that you can get an extremely powerful content management and publishing system essentially for free. But it does piss me off that I can post an Excel table directly into frakking Blogger and it works with no problems whatsoever.

See:

Time	Net	Show	Viewers (Millons)	18-49 Rating/Share
8:00	ABC	Americas Funniest Home Videos (R )	6.02	1.5/5
	CBS	Ghost Whisperer	9.33	2.3/8
	NBC	Amne$ia	4.51	1.3/4
	CW	Friday Night Smackdown! (8p-10p)	4.56	1.4/5
	FOX	Bones (R )	4.54	1.2/4
9:00	ABC	Duel	3.93	1.2/4
	CBS	The Price is Right	8.55	2.2/7
	NBC	Dateline (9p-11p)	6.78	1.8/6
	FOX	Canterburys Law	6.07	1.4/4
10:00	ABC	20/20	4.82	1.5/5
	CBS	Numb3rs	9.91	2.3/7

Anyway, Fred Wilson kind of pissed me off because he was right twice. First, last week he said he wasn't interested in the NCAA semi-finals because after Davidson was ousted, it just wasn't very interesting. I figured, you know, that with a bunch of number one seeds playing each other the games would at least be good. They weren't. Boring as hell really. The only good outcome at all of any of that was that the Kansas/North Carolina game was such a blowout, out of boredom I flipped channels and wound up hitting the two-hour pilot of Firefly right at the very beginning. I'd heard many good things about it and had been meaning to watch (the series only lasted 14 episodes, but then they also added a 2 hour movie later). I enjoyed it.

Other than that, the only good news was that in about the span of one week, the Washington Capitals went from not being in the playoffs to winning their division and getting the #3 seed in the Eastern conference. It all came down to the last game. If they won, or even lost in overtime, they would win the division, and if they lost they would be eliminated. They won. Alex Ovechkin will certainly win the MVP award without question now that the Caps are in the playoffs and Ted Leonsis, in addition to getting to go to the playoffs, and having the home ice advantage for the first round, will get some playoff revenue. I'm delighted for him. Go Caps!

Ok, Steve Jobs. I sort of had a "I knew it was you, Fredo!" moment. Damn you Fred Wilson. I took a break from studying php code and saw a comment by Fred on one of his blog posts were it said he was disappointed in Apple/Jobs for not going with Flash on the iPhone. While there is no Flash on the iPhone, I'd always heard it was "coming soon" (of course that's been over 9 months now) and was unaware any decision had been made. So I Googled and yep, sure as hell Jobs said a month ago that it wasn't going to happen.

I hope this is just some negotiating strategy, and not some business strategy. In fairness, you need a good WiFi connection to stream anything well, but that's not a problem for me. The H.264 streaming built into the iPhone to work with YouTube works extremely well on the iPhone with a WiFi connection, even for very high quality videos. But here's the problem, MOST of what I want to watch isn't on YouTube. In fact, almost nothing I want to watch is on YouTube.

It seemed like Adobe thought they could build it anyway because of the iPhone SDK, but from what I read, it doesn't play really nicely with Flash, and so it's not looking good, and I'm guessing that's going to scuttle any thought of Slingbox on the iPhone, too. I hope that's wrong. If not, it sucks. It also limits significantly how I want to use my iPhone for video. I've got a DVR on my computer and a couple of ways that I can stream to other computers (whether I'm at home or not). One just directly via my computer via software from Orb.com, the other SlingBox. And whatever Orb does with H264 or .MV4 it isn't the same as what YouTube is doing because even over a good WiFi connection, it's pretty useless for the iPhone, sadly (I could stream music well enough, but video never worked well).

It took Jobs a while to come around to saying, "DRM is bad for consumers," and for the same reasons I hope that he'll come around with Flash. Because really, making your device so it is prohibitive from working with the stuff your customers already have – that's got to be bad for consumers. iTunes is fine, but I don't love it so much that I'd marry it. And if someone makes an iPhone clone, with a phone, with a touch screen, with an actually, real-life operating system such as Apple has done with the iPhone (and NOT something like Windows Mobile), oh I will switch for sure. Of course, exactly at the point that happens, Jobs will make sure my phone works with whatever I already have.

I understand Steve Jobs' desire to have "control", but it's a double-edged sword. One edge of it did wonders for the way the iPhone works. The reason Windows Mobile sucks compared to the iPhone is because it's not a full operating system that takes up nearly a Gig of space. The way Apple went about "control" allowed them to actually put a full-fledged computer on the phone.

But for all the reasons DRM is bad for consumers, this is bad too. We want control of our stuff, and if your stuff doesn't play nicely, it's bad. If it's 2:30pm and I'm not home but I have my iPhone and a good WiFi connection, I feel like I ought to be able to connect to my computer or SlingBox and stream Pardon the Interruption to myself. But no dice. And yeah, I know ESPN winds up putting it online, but guess what? That's ALSO in Flash.

Steve Jobs, like Fredo, you broke my heart.

Seidman vs. Gorman TVbytheNumbers-style

TVbytheNumbers.com is still in shambles, but you can give it a look at www.tvbythenumbers.com/wp .But man cannot live by charts and numbers alone, so we're toying around with a couple of ideas to be more entertaining. Here's one...

OVER/UNDER

First question. Over or under ONE YEAR before NBCU shows are back on Apple's iTunes?

Robert: UNDER! NBC Universal has a problem. The way the it is set up I believe they will ONLY be able to sell well digitally if someone actually wants to watch it on the iPod. Otherwise, they'll go to NBC's site looking to see where they can buy Heroes and one of two things will happen:

1. $4.99? WTF!?

2. Even if it's $1.99 - HEY! they archive all the shows here during the season! I'll just watch it FOR FREE (there are ads, but only a few with what any of them are currently doing. It adds about 2 minutes instead of 20 you'd see on TV). Under, definitely under.

Bill: OVER! You're insane to think that the executives making these decisions at NBCU are sane, rational people trying to figure out how to make the most money and act in their own self-interests.. It's all about ego, and they can't handle that Steve Jobs is so, so fabulous and they're so, so not. Unless GE & Vivendi fire the dopes at NBCU who made this choice, I'm sticking with OVER.

Next question: Over/Under ONE HUNDRED TIMES that Les Moonves says "Only 45% of DVR users zap through the commercials" during the 2007-2008 season?

Robert: This is a ridiculous question. And a ridiculous statistic that's only true if you squint and ignore the actual data. I'd be prone to go over, even at ONE THOUSAND TIMES. More and more people will be moving to DVR usage and more and more advertisers will be upset about it. Moonves will constantly and consistently try to soothe them while still getting their greenbacks. OVER

Bill: Ahh, the pain and agony of having to agree with you. OVER. I have nothing else to add.

Next Question: Over/Under TEN: Number of this season's new shows that make it to next year's lineup?

Robert: If you include the CW in this mix, which we must because we here at TVbytheNumbers are a very inclusive bunch there are FORTY SIX new shows. I don't want to go over though because I think the number is exactly 10. So I'm going to push and say 10

Bill: The game is OVER/UNDER! We'll have to start changing these questions (e.g. 10.5) to force you into being a man and growing some stones. It's UNDER, it will be around 8 or 9 shows. But this is a dumb question to be asking now because Fox is holding back all their good stuff until January. I can't WAIT for The Sarah Connor Chronicles! Not to mention my favorites 24 and American Idol. No wait, I don't actually like either of those shows, I might give the Return of Jezebel James a try though. UNDER!

Robert: You know you can't wait for ABC's Cavemen! But when it comes to ABC I'm all about seeing my boy Mark Cuban winning Dancing with the Stars and watching Denny Crane (Boston Legal).

I don't know that I'll watch ANY new show. I may even bail on 24, it sucked last year. They say it will be better this year, with a female president. Fortunately I don't have to worry about that until next year. I'm pretty set in my ways.

Bill: You will watch the Sarah Connor Chronicles and you know you're going to watch the Bionic Woman AT LEAST once.

Robert: I'm as likely to watch the Bionic Woman as I am to watch 20/20, which is never. I didn't like it in the ‘70's, I won't like it in '07.

Bill: Admit it, it's already on your Tivo...

Next Question..(p.s. Zap2it has good full coverage of all the lineups).

Over/Under: Seven Weeks that Mark Cuban Lasts on "Dancing with the Stars"?

Robert: OVER, people are crazy if they don't think Cubes is advancing to the finals. I'd say he's going to win at all except for two words: Jane Seymour. C'mon, how am I going to bet against Jayne Seymour? But Mark will crush Marie Osmond and Scary Spice. You just wait!

Bill: Why do you make me suffer through your man-love for Cuban? Are you going to send him "good luck" flowers too? Cuban won't fare any better here than he did with the Benefactor (6 weeks!) UNDER, under, under, definitely under.

Robert: You're insane, but that's a great idea about the flowers! That's it for this week boys and girls...

(this is a complete mockup and may not accuately reflect the opinions of either of us, though that will always be true! The idea is also completely a ripoff of Tony Kornheiser's and Michael Wilbon's fine work on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption).

Marc Cuban vs. Steve Jobs: Who ya Got?

The problem with my love of sports and shows like ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn is love of creating “the contest”. Your team vs. my team, with the ensuing smack talk (your team sucks, my team rules!). I’m 45, and it never gets old for me. And I’m OK with this because sports is one of the few places this should happen. I don’t think it’s good that this same emotional nature, including all the smack-talk seems to drive the political arena as well.

When it comes to Mark Cuban and Steve Jobs, my answer is: BOTH. I pick both. If I could only pick one, sorry Cubes, I gotta go with Jobs but, dude, he invented the iPhone, maybe you’ve heard of it!? (indeed, I am lamenting the outing of Fake Steve Jobs!) I use my iPod/iPhone much more than I watch any HDTV, HDNet or otherwise. But I don’t have to pick just one here, so I pick both. They both announced some new products this week.

Apple announced its new line of computers including a sweet 24” iMac. I am not historically a user of Apple computers, but I have been leaning towards buying one when the new Apple Store opens up on Chestnut Street about 5 blocks from where I live in San Francisco. It’s just an elegant machine and all the issues I had with the Mac vs. PC debate years ago are no longer issues for me.

The only ding against the iMac I have at all is that there aren’t more options and it’s not very customizable. It apparently doesn’t come with a high end video card and that’s disappointing. If you want an iMac with a high end video card, too freaking bad: you can’t have one. You have to buy a Mac Pro, and that’s way more computer (for way more money) than I need (or need to spend). I like the elegance of the all-in-one iMac, but I am big into video applications on my computer and am disappointed there aren’t more options.

Mark Cuban recently announced Ultra HD Video on Demand, which, according to a write-up in Variety:

Cuban is offering it to DirecTV, Time Warner Cable, Charter, Verizon and other cable-network distributors as a snob-appeal add-on to Cuban-financed and -distributed films that show up, for free, on his 24/7 HDNet Movies on the same day the pics open in theaters.

A shout out to Variety write John Dempsey because the phrase “a snob appeal add-on” will forever be etched in my vernacular! I have not been in love with the movie theaters and their $10 ticket prices for some time. Ultra HD aims to bring you theatrical releases sometimes even weeks before their theatrical releases at a retail price of $12.95-$19.95 depending on the movie.

I find this pricing extremely reasonable and I wonder years from now if these types of services won’t pummel the movie houses. Sure, for one person it’s more expensive, but add a second person in your living room and it’s either cheaper or competitive. If there are four people in your living room, it’s a fantastic deal, especially when you factor in the “you got to see it first!” aspect. There’s definitely something to be said for snob appeal add-ons. I hope the studios like this model and that it takes off rapidly.

Cuban is ahead of Jobs on this front, but those of you who have read any of my screeds on Apple’s Four Steps to Total World Domination know that I believe getting stuff from iTunes on to your big screen is a part of that plan. If that’s true, ultimately Steve Jobs and Apple will be offering the same type of thing as Ultra HD.

Over the long haul, unless Cuban somehow beats Jobs to the punch with some easy way of getting that UltraHD movie onto my iPhone/iPod, I think Jobs will win this contest. But it’s not clear to me yet whether several years from now when Apple TV is no longer a “hobby” whether Apple will do deals directly with the studios or just cut a deals with offerings like Cubans. If I have to guess, I am guessing Apple will cut the deals directly with the studios itself, but my guessing is often wrong.

Update 10:26 PDT: I just saw this poll on the Motley Fool and was a little sad because I don't need to buy any of them, but things are looking good for Cuban if this sentiment can be extrapolated to the rest of the world:

Which item do you need to buy right now?
Plasma screen, high definition TV
(6296 votes - 40%)
Computer
(3569 votes - 23%)
Washing machine
(1875 votes - 12%)
iPhone
(1875 votes - 12%)
Air conditioning
(1992 votes - 13%)

The iPhone: It's Not Hype

Over three weeks into the iPhone lifestyle and I am not buying the anti-hype hype. The thing does what it’s supposed to and for me it’s a keeper.

It’s the best iPod ever, combined with a phone that has the best portable browser for a phone ever. What exactly is the hype? If it doesn’t have better integration with corporate e-mail by V2, that’s an issue. But otherwise being control freaks paid huge dividends – for the consumer. Here’s why: I think the single thing that differentiates this phone (besides it being the best iPod ever) is that it takes up nearly a gig (ok, more like 3/4ths) for the OS. It’s a computer that has the phone built into it, not the other way around.

Microsoft didn’t have that kind of leverage when creating Windows Mobile and I don’t know if they have a bigger operating system for mobile in testing, but if they do it’s the most hush-hush MSFT beta ever. If Apple solves the corporate e-mail and Edge network challenges, by the time people are ready to upgrade their older blackberries, I think people will jump ship. Seems like the software advantage will be an advantage for a while. OK, so it doesn’t cure cancer. But it’s not hype, it’s the wave of the future.

The genius of Steve Jobs may be how well the “iPod everywhere” strategy is in place. I see them everywhere. Everywhere. More and more people tuning out the world with ear buds. God bless you, Steve Jobs. But this gets people using Apple products on a daily basis and is great for the Apple brand.

One of the comments I hear from all my real world iPhone demos is “it works just like it does in the commercials”. And it’s true, it does. It really isn’t hype. The thing is, if you suck at what your job, your still going to suck, iPhone or no iPhone, but the iPhone is a good gadget.

I don’t need access to corporate e-mail, it works OK. Not great, but good enough for most of what I need, and this will be improved even before the next generation, I’m sure. The Web browser is awesome. Ok, it has some glitches with page loads, and it is unusable for regular use with the Edge network, but on WiFi, very cool. OK, like once a week it has weird glitches and I have to turn it all the way off and back on, and voila, normal operation. It’s not perfect, but I could live with that a couple of times a day even. It’s not like the thing takes a long time to “reboot”.

And besides It really is the best iPod ever. The bigger, improved video screen is a huge addition for me, but I think the bigger deal here may be the touch screen controls. Once you get the hang of it, it seems much improved even over the iPod in terms of controlling your media experience. Ok, so even Steve Jobs isn’t ready for people to ask, “How do I get stuff off of my DVR and onto my iPod/iPhone?” but there aren’t that many people asking right now. That will change.

I believe something else is going to change: Apple is going to start taking some share away from Microsoft when it comes to personal computer upgrades. Mindshare of “having cool products”, coupled with a growing retail presence, adds up to more people upgrading to Apple computers. The “it’s been out 6 months” are starting to trickle in for Vista and apparently some are considering its launch a bust.

I find that ironic, because at least on a new OEM machine, it’s the best version of Windows I’ve ever used. I don’t have to reboot very often, and while some programs do crash, generally performance is good. I could do with more memory (and I have 2GB) and better video memory, but this wasn’t a high end gaming system either (it was ~$1200, without a monitor). What operating system you have is becoming more and more transparent. If it has a web browser and e-mail and you can do what you need to do, and it will be “cooler” than having a windows machine for the next 5 years, I believe barring a major economic downturn, many people will upgrade from Windows to a Mac.

Even one of my Mac friends is expressing some faux bitterness for all the attention the iPhone is getting versus the beloved Mac. But there’s no hype with the iPhone, the product works as advertised. I think it’s a function of timing. There are barriers involved with switching cell phones, even if you’re not switching carriers. Then there’s another barrier, $600. It’s hard to argue with the success of the launch and whether it’s closer to a half a million sold versus a million sold in a little over three weeks, as long as it’s over 500,000 in a little over 3 weeks, that’s a pretty steep ramp towards one million.

When the Mac launched, there just wasn’t the pent up demand for home computing. You could make the argument that there was an opportunity to take advantage of the “cooler stuff” opportunity in the mid to late 1990s, but while the first few years of Steve Jobs return might have been slow, the last few years seem to be bearing more fruit. Apples perhaps.

Looks like Apple is on track for total world domination.

Oh man, the "Good old Days" are Back - It's Begging for the (Handheld) Desktop

I underplayed how important the iPhone is --underplayed it. Oh sure, I had it as part of Steve J's four steps to total world domination - but I was just thinking of it in terms of distribution for portable media, which it is...but it's more. I had to have my hands on the thing to understand. But not very long...

This is online services and desktop computing all combined and all over again. It seems like it’s early days, and it is, but there will be a lot more people who’ll show up to the party early this time around.

The “Club Apple” online service will have a million users and it won't take long. Then 5 million, then 10 million. Then who knows? But it doesn't matter even at 10 million, it's enough scale. It's not really competing against any other desktop quite like it. Yet.

I'm looking at that home page desktop set of icons -- there’s still some room. It's not too early to start kissing up to Steve J. and telling him how great he is.

Psssst, Steve J…you’re freaking GREAT. Great I say: seriously -- best gadget ever. Please put my little stupid blog on your iPhone. C’mon man. You blocked me from streaming in 3GP mode with my Orb and are making me wait for Flash, but I still love you.

Amazingly with all your VISION THING you neglected to design it so that e-mail and text messaging applications could rotate into landscape mode. This is key because in landscape mode I can use a finger or thumb from each hand and that means I can type about as half as fast as normal that way, which is plenty fast enough. Using a finger from each hand in portrait mode is tough. Too tough. But I still love, love, love it and my phone # hasn't even ported over yet. I haven't had my first call come in while listening to the iPod, I mean iPhone. Best portable media and portable internet device ever. The phone thing is a nice add-on. Thanks man.

If you know you’re going to have back to back updates within a month, get me on the desktop in the first update and take me out in the second. Is that so much to ask? One measly month on the desktop. Please, please, please. I bought the iPhone and like 9 ipods. I’ll buy a Mac as soon as the Apple Store opens up on Chestnut St., I promise. Please, please, pretty please.

Steve Case, come back man, come back. We need another Steve, and it’s not that extraordinary visionary Steve Ballmer. Plus you made getting on the desktop work! Oh man.

Microsoft is playing from a really weird position compared to the last time I cared – trying to catch up to Apple some how . Sure Windows mobile/CE whatever their OS for the wireless handheld platform is on millions of phones, but NO DESKTOP REAL ESTATE. Ha!

Yeah, Zune just sold a million, but by the time it hits 2 million, 10 million iPhones will have sold. 10 million people.

I was thinking how on earth would I try to capitalize on this right now if I wasn’t such a lazy guy who quite often prefers thinking to doing. Eye candy. Give me ads that are more or less eye candy. Then I started screwing around with YouTube for the iPhone.

The good old cell phone or low budget video production will always be popular provided it’s coverage of Paris with her boob falling out of her dress or some other celebrity thing. Otherwise the 10 million future residents of Club Apple are going to be elitist with their video. Give me highly produced, high quality video iCandy. They’re going to have to figure out how to stream HD faster. But people did figure this out. Within the featured items were a couple of things I watched purely because they were just eye candy. One was basically just an ad for someone’s Photoshop skills combined with someone’s music skills for the soundtrack. Totally worked for me as iPhone eye candy and looks much better on the iPhone than it does on my 24" monitor running in 1920x1200 mode.

The other was this guy doing a dumb little dance all over the world. Didn’t love the soundtrack but I kept looking. The well produced stuff plays really well on the iPhone.

I’m not sure how Google (YouTube) is getting paid on this or the maps. I'm guessing it traded that for being the default search engine in the Safari browser.

But I’m sure there are no ads in Maps or Youtube right now (just branding). And I’m sure of this, at Club Apple, Steve J, not Ser-gei or Lar-ray is calling the shots. It’s going to be fun. Let the begging to be on the desktop begin.

Please, please - just a month. C'mon man.

The good old days are back.

Apple, iPhone/iPod/Apple TV Thesis backgrounder

this needs to be edited really, and...I'm just not in any space of caring about that right now, but there's some good thinking here if you can sift through it.
--

I’ve had a few experiences where I felt WOW about technology in a big way and they were:

1. My first experiences with getting a 300 Baud modem to work. That was a WOW experience.
2. The first time I saw QLink, then AOL, then AOL for Windows
3. The first time I saw the WWW that was another WOW. -this made total sense to me. I e-mailed everyone I knew. I e-mailed Steve Case a lot but I didn’t have his "real" address then (this was probably from May ’93 thru Sept ’93. I launched my newsletter 2 months before Netscape’s 1st beta in September '94, but I had been using Mosaic a while – on slow ass 14.4 and 28.8! it was still cool to see the future.
4. When I saw the iPhone at MacWorld in January
--

A long time ago I figure out that someday my media library would be truly liberated, and have even been playing with usable tech for 3+ years, but I never saw any application I thought would anywhere near it towards mass adoption not even the current top of the line stand alone iPod..though I LOVE the device. (much more in the 'read more').

I’m going to tie it back to what will perhaps be a new concept for you, and one that involves television in a way. I understand the wow of this as a handheld internet application, but it’s not the only wow in there for me, and not the biggest one. I expected that piece years ago. The windows mobile people just never delivered (I’ve tried a few handhelds running that OS).

Right now, today the whole space is more 300 Baud modem than Netscape in some ways, but in other ways if you’re a little geeky there’s absolutely a lot of stuff you can do . I do not know whether out of the gate the iPhone will allow me to stream in my streaming set-up – I will know by Saturday.

But Walt Mossberg assures me that if my 3GP streaming (which Apple is supporting for youtube) doesn’t work , the Flash upgrade to the iphone will be fairly soon and that will definitely work with the set-up I have for streaming. I will be able to watch my TV via ORB on the iPhone via Wifi.

But I don’t need to wait. I decided to buy now anyway, because like the 300 baud modem, I want to be hands on with all this stuff at the beginning. and I have been messing around with the back end of it for about 3 years now, this is the first front end that I thought: WOW!.

My setup works fine on any laptop with an internet connection already and has for 2 years, but handhelds…no good handheld. Let alone one that is a cellphone, a camera, an ipod, that fits in my pocket comfortably with a freaking microphone built into the earbuds. I miss calls all the time even with my phone on vibrate because I use the ipod a lot.

Ok, here’s the thesis: people will spend more time watching video media. (Nielsen has data stating that average TV watching time is still going up, I will share this data at a later time).

On the subway, in the 12 minute starbucks line in manhattan., at the airport when you have a 2 hour delay. You will someday have full access, in the airport lounge, with a device like your iphone to:

1. -everything on your cable/satellite box (live television) at home
2. whatever’s on your on-demand for those products (the Comcast on-demand offering here is extremely robust, especially if you have pay channels.)
3. whatever’s on your dvr
4. whatever movies/media (all this is music/audio and pictures too, of course) you have in digital format which will eventually be everything you buy. The DVD revenue stream is not long for the world as a cash cow (5-10 years max), and in 20 years, only iconoclasts and purists will buy CD’s and DVD’s (that will be a market, just like there is still a market for vinyl and laser disks, but how interesting are those markets to you?).
--

Apple was the Apple of its space, then AOL was the Apple of its space, and now, somehow someway, I think Apple is going to be the Apple of…both spaces, and new spaces too and my heart is in the new spaces.

How I view Apple in the space of fully portable media is the way I viewed AOL in the internet/online space between 1986-2000. “These people get that making the stuff easy to do and visually appealing is really important! Easy to use trumps whatever freaking gazillion databases CompuServe and Prodigy will charge you $2/minute to access”.

Steve Jobs totally gets it. Totally gets it. He gets it more than me (how often do you think I admit anything like that?!) But I think the strategy for the phone is brilliant and will build large demand for a cheaper, stand alone ipod that has all the features of the iPhone except the actual phone. it will be a portable wif internet device with a bigger touch screen. When I can’t say, they can’t be too quick with this because I think they really do want to hit 10 million phones by the end of 2008.

I can’t take you exactly through the timing curve of “very early adopter” (me) to mass adoption. But I believe there will be mass adoption. Whether that’s 10, 15 or more years, I don’t know, but I think this curve is going to be steeper/quicker than the curve with my modem in 1982 to the world starting to care ~1995 (Netscape 1.0 release).

It’s going to change how all the deals are cut too. Ultimately, the NHL will want to just stream all the games itself. And iTunes, which doesn’t do streaming right now..well they plan it with their AppleTV (it is already a media extender that streams from your PC to your TV), but I believe ultimately a vital part of the apple strategy will be to become something of a “Cable/Satellite” alternative, and they will need Live TV to do this (sports is always going to be popular live).

There are technological challenges to overcome, just as there were with the 300 baud modem and the first browsers, but these challenges will be solved and I’ll be able to buy from AppleTV, for $199 or whatever it is, the NHL hockey package, and I’ll be able to:

- Stream it to your big screen in high definition
- Stream it to any video appliance you have (computer, other tvs, handheld devices, laptops, etc) wherever I am.

I already know hockey doesn’t think like the MLB. MLB will HATE this for a while, but it’s just being slow to realize control is important and that it might get more subscribers if people felt like they could maximize paying $200 for it to begin with. I always hated when I was a directTV NFL Sunday ticket subscriber and was out of town on a Sunday. I felt like I was paying for something I couldn’t use, and wished I could use.

Whether compared to the internet curve this is 1985 or 1995…I lean towards 1985 in terms of complexity, but with really good results for some of the work (I can stream high quality video all over my house, and typically reasonable quality video anywhere I can get a wifi connection) but that set-up is WAY, WAY too hard for the average joe.

I predict Steve Jobs will make it easy, maybe even fun. He’ll get some of the “non live” stuff sorted out with the next AppleTV . I’m sure it will probably have DVR functionality and I’m sure it will make getting something from the DVR to the iPod much easier than what I have today.

On the iPhone there are space considerations because its only 8GB right now, but they can get it down where you could have 3 hours of programming from the night before in around a 1GB of space and maintain very high quality video (for a 3.5” display)

these are still very early days, with no focus and nobody really going after the portable media market with ease of use/design in mind. Nobody, except Apple. Different space, different time, but I think the comparison to AOL holds up. I was facetious with Steve Jobs 4 keys to total world domination headline, but I wasn’t kidding around at all about the thinking.

There are lots of implications here, I have only begun to consider:

- Still MORE attrition for primetime ratings/share (though since they count back in DVR viewership w/in 7 days into the weekly #’s they will ultimately be forced to track how many people watched Gray’s Anatomy on their iphones into the ratings.
- Many, many new distribution opportunities
New opportunities for advertising…

My head is spinning, but it’s fun.

Steve Jobs’ and Apple's Four Keys to Total World Domination

Step 1: Launch the best portable music player ever designed that works with the best software ever designed for managing the experience and get millions of iPods into the world and hundreds of millions of copies of iTunes installed World Wide.

Report Card: A+

Step 2: Create a buzz around a revolutionary new phone which actually probably isn’t the best cell phone in the world, but make people want it anyway by being the best iPod ever.

Based on the reviews here, here, here and here the early report card is: A+ (when you consider the phone isn’t available and all these guys tried to find the reasons not to like it, and they had many…and still loved it anyway).

Step 3: Launch more affordable stand alone iPod that has all the features of the iPhone except the phone itself (think bigger touch screen and cool as heck WiFi appliance)

Report Card: TBD

Step 4: Turn AppleTV (Steve’s Little Hobby™) into a full-fledged media server (as opposed to the basic media extender it currently is) with full features (DVR, pay per view/internet download directly from the tv, full streaming capabilities not just at home, but remotely). The goal of this box should be that it’s mostly transparent to the people using it. If they want to watch something on their big screen, it works, if they want to watch in their bedroom, it works, if they want to watch on their office computer, it works and of course if they want to watch on their iPod or iPhone, it works.

Report Card: TBD
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Time is an important dimension here, but total world domination is worth the effort as far as Apple and Steve Jobs are concerned. They’ll have to keep stirring the pot, and I believe that Apple will make the concept of “liberating your media, so it’s really yours to do what you please with” something that everyone wants. But if Marketing is the metric, and past performance is any indicator…A+ Keep doing that for the next 5-15 years and…total world domination. And really, given its history, Apple would be happy to only own 80-90% of the “liberated media market”.

My only ding on Apple at all with regard to any of this is that if they sold iPods with big hard drives preloaded with 100 hours of video content, more people would understand the concept of portable media sooner, but they can wait 1-3 years on this probably without it impacting the quest for dominance.

Why AAPL Will be Higher in 5 Years

Disclosure: I'm almost always wrong 20% of the time. I use the 80-20 rule and strive to have 100 opinions a day. Usually at least 20 are wrong. It's an absolutely fantastic way to learn though. When it comes to the stock market, while my opinions are fewer, I'm probably only right 20% of the time. But I think this is the 1 out of 5.

Why I love Apple Computer

I'm sure my friend Bill G. and my old friend Mark Hurst will get a chuckle out of this. They'll ask me what took me so long. But this isn't about the reasons they love Apple. They actually love the computers Apple makes. Bill G., he couldn't care less about an iPod, bizarre as that may sound. I can go more bizarre. Hurst didn't even own a TV when I met him. I finally talked him into letting me dump an old 20" set on him before I moved to California. I played up the fact that he sometimes liked movies and he could hook a VCR up to it (these were still pre-DVD days). Much has transpired, and I'm pretty sure Hurst has a TV now, but…I wouldn't bet any money on it.

Bill and Mark have their reasons for loving Apple. I have my own.

Steve Jobs. He really does have that vision thing. there is much more in the 'read more..'

Real Steve Jobs. He's the only executive out there on a large scale that I see as really being ahead of the curve. His quest for total world domination is just beginning. The iPhone will have to be a huge flop which is possible, I suppose, but I'll be surprised. What I think will happen is the phone will have some issues, but they'll get addressed in V2 and the juggernaut that is Steve Jobs and Apple will just keep juggernauting.

Here's one way he's ahead of the curve. Nice handheld device that works with WiFi that (allegedly) has a relatively good battery life. This reason alone has me considering V1 very strongly. Because of Steve Jobs I will almost certainly be saying bye-bye to Verizon as my cell phone provider.

Verizon doesn't offer WiFi, though they do have a fairly fast network for accessing the Internet from your phone. The phone I have will absolutely stream windows media. Except that Verizon blocked that from regular Internet Web access. Verizon wants you to pay $14.95 a month for its VCast service with a very limited offering. Verizon will try to tell you that the offering is not limited, but quite robust. But it's not.

My basis of comparison is that if they would have just let me stream via the Windows Media Center, I could've had access to every channel of my cable box, everything stored on my DVR and everything in my media library (music and video). VCast is not robust compared to a scaled down cable or satellite offering, it's certainly not robust compared to what I have access to. It's really not robust compared to anything other than itself.

Verizon would have been better off selling freaks like me who are way, way ahead of this curve unlimited access to its network for $14.95 a month. I would've paid for it and probably wouldn't have wound up using it much at all. I can tell what a hit success VCast has been by looking at Verizon's last quarterly report (for the period ending 3/31/07). There is exactly ZERO mention of VCast in the earnings report. My guess is when the numbers come out for Q2, again, there will be ZERO mention of VCast. And that I would be willing to bet on. $100 anyway.

Now the iPhone comes along. I don't care about how fast AT&T's network is for data. I don't care that there's no 3G – because it has WiFi. In San Francisco WiFi isn't quite ubiquitous, just nearly so much so that usually I wouldn't notice the difference. The iPhone solves 2 problems: one it's a handheld multimedia device AND a hand held Internet appliance that will work pretty much wherever I am. If it works anywhere near as well as advertised (which is by no means a given), it will be a huge success.

There is the small problem where I switched from what was AT&T (Cingular) to Verizon because although I live in an urban area, when I had Cingular I rarely got any bars in my home. Hopefully they have corrected that by now.

The launch of the iPhone kills VCast off as far as I'm concerned and it was dead on arrival to begin with. This is no big deal. Verizon doesn't do "that vision thing", but what telco does? Verizon had a chance at the iPhone and initially I thought they were smart for passing. Jobs wants Apple calling all the shots. I wonder if Jobs talked AT&T into including the Apple logo on the monthly statement. That would make the transition more seamless when they get around to taking the AT&T logo off. Ok, I jest. Kind of.

Killing a deader than dead VCast is no big deal, but this is: Apple's iTunes Store is now the 3^rd largest retailer of music, passing Amazon. That's right, someone selling DIGITAL music, is the 3^rd largest retailer of music. Apple has about 10% of the market (9.8%) trailing only Wal-Mart (15.8%) and Best Buy (13.8%). All this really means right now is a few things:

1. Digital music sales represent at least 10% of the whole pie
2. Distribution is so fragmented that you can have 10% of the overall market and be in 3^rd place.
3. If you make it easy and make buying music a good experience, a lot of people will buy it digitally instead of steal it digitally.
   

The CD isn't dead , Amazon and Target (#'s 4 & 5) still combine for more sales than Apple, but that's the trend. And it's way, way early days for that trend as far as video, but that's going to be the trend with that as well. Everyone who likes more flexibility and control over their media and is not change resistant will want their media in digital format to begin with. There are always those resistant to change. But you wait them out and they either change or die. The world moves on either way.

It's going to be at least 5 years before Apple rips me off and launches the "Put your TV on your iPod/iPhone" campaign, but I still believe that's what Steve's Little Hobby™ is all about.

Microsoft didn't design for this kind of stuff, not even when it set out to compete with the iPod with the Zune. The Zune does have WiFi built into it, but it's old school 802.11b. Not only that, they didn't turn on real live Internet access (you can talk to another Zune apparently, if you could find…another Zune, but you can't browse the web).

The Zune would've made sense to me as a portable media device if it had enabled WiFi. It's got a nice screen and it works fairly seamless in terms of "synching" with a media center. But I am near a half terabyte in media storage, and growing. The Zune can't hold all that or do "live tv". But the iPhone can.

There are other portable media players that are missing the boat too. I saw a very nice one from Archos, but they want you to use their software. It does have WifI, and it's got a nice screen, but a few things. One thing the good old pre iPhone iPod has taught me. I don't need a bigger screen to enjoy video remotely. The Archos is slick, but it's not going to fit into my pocket any more comfortably than a PSP (and perhaps less comfortably) and that's not all that comfortable really. But the Archos doesn't want to hook into my media center, it wants to hook right up to my cable box and use its own DVR docking station to record programs. If I were starting from scratch today with portable media, I might give it a look.

With Apple, I won't have to. Apple is making the first handheld device I can use to stream video. I know, there are handhelds that do this now. I have one. It's an iPaq and it does a nice job but the battery life wasn't very good at all with WiFi enabled.

The battery life is key to me. But if I can get an hour of WiFi access to browse or stream and still have a couple of hours of talk time, I don't think the battery life is an issue. If I stream video for an hour and won't be able to use my phone afterwards, that's a problem. For those who have continuous access to chargers that might not be a big deal. The iPhone still beats the other handhelds though because of the form factor. From the looks of it, it has a much better form factor for my pocket than even the 80GB Video iPod, and that has a way better form factor than any other portable device I have (besides the Nano, of course).

I don't see 40 million people running out and buying an iPhone for $600. But if you ask me in 5 years if I think there will be 20 million iPods/iPhones out there that do WiFi in a nice form factor, the answer is yes. That assumes some non-phone version that has similar features (the bigger touch screen, internet access via wifi, etc).

And in 10 years? In 10 years you'll be reading about how iTunes is the #3 distributor of music and video (and of course #1 in digital distribution). And by then, Apple TV isn't going to be a hobby. It'll just be some box in your house that you hook up and never think about again. It will be the box that seamlessly gets all your media wherever you want it and wherever you are. And it won't be for gearheads like me. It'll all be as easy to use as the iPod.

My Media Center runs on Microsoft Vista. The portable streaming is powered by Orb Network's software. The first handheld device to truly unleash the power of all that when I'm outside the home...is an Apple product.

Right now, I'm one of a relative handful of people who even cares. For that alone I love that Apple built this so I could take full advantage RIGHT NOW without having to wait 10 years. In ten years it will be so much better.

I'm sure there will be challengers, but like Google ten years ago, nobody knows who those challengers are. We've seen Microsoft's vision and if it's the Zune, well it's a vision, and for many people it's a very functional product.

It just doesn't liberate all my media and fit comfortably in my pocket. the iPhone looks like it will. I don't underestimate "liberating my media" and "fitting nicely and comfortably in my pocket". For now, I am sure I overestimate it, but I'm always ahead of the curve on this stuff.

Right now I think AAPL will be higher in 5 years. I could be wrong, and even if I'm right, it could go back down to $60 before shooting to $600. If your time horizon is 3 days, or 3 weeks or 3 months I don't have an opinion. But if it's 5 years, right now I would say buy APPL even with the huge run up of the last year.

all of this assumes only these three things:

1. the iPhone works pretty much as advertised
2. there will be iPods that have a lot of the functionality of the iPhone at much better prices
3. AppleTV becomes a full fledged media center/server instead of merely a media extender for iTunes
   

It’s the Mirror Neurons: Put your TV on your Ipod Part II

The mirror neurons are basically what happens in your brain where anything you've seen/experienced in real life -- let's say a 50" plasma screen TV -- where even if you see the commercial of a 50" plasma screen TV on a 20" television, your brain more or less processes it in your mind as if it is actually a 50" plasma screen. Mirror Neurons are also the thing where if you see someone eating chocolate your brain automatically (without you even thinking about it) begins processing the same chemicals as if you were actually eating it. And of course, porn. Porn works because of the mirror neurons. And for that matter, TV. TV fires the mirror neurons. Advertisers and programmers alike capitalize on this.

And this is the beauty of science and observation. People capitalized on mirror neurons for years without ever even knowing what they are. It was already a science. But increasingly, armed with more and more data about how the brain works, they will probably get it to an exact science. A lot of benefit will come from that, and not just on the advertising and entertaining fronts.

But right now – already, the mirror neurons are why even on your ipod's small screen it doesn't matter, and when the new generation of ipods with the bigger screen like the iPhone (I am thinking helplessly of some way to put a Pacific Catch reference in here, but I can't make it work) it will matter even less.

Today I walked over to Houstons on the Embarcadero to meet another out of work slacker for lunch (she's a married out of work slacker with 2 kids though, so she's nowhere near the slacker I am) and when I use my feet as a mode of transportation, I try to be early if I can so I will have10 minutes to cool off. So I sat at the bar guzzling diet Coke and tried out my new "kick-stand" case, a little accessory that makes it easy for you to stand the iPod upright.

I decided that for Season 5 of 24, I would watch it exclusively on the iPod. Let me rant on this one more time. I bought it off iTunes. The quality is really great. If it's not DVD quality running on the bigscreen, my eyes can't tell the difference. On a 2" screen it looks really good as well. But, I paid more for that on iTunes than I would have buying the DVDs at Best Buy. And those come with commentary.

Steve Jobs needs iTunes to be competitive with BestBuy, Target, Walmart, Amazon, etc. And not just on price. They need to figure out subtitles, cut scenes, commentary, all of the extras. A good first step would just be selling it for less than the superior, vastly more expensive to make and distribute physical product. If Apple wants iTunes/iStore/"Steve's Little Hobby™" Apple TV to be a player, the digital media must compete fully with the physical media or be noticeably less expensive than the physical media. Right now, neither is the case, I get less at a higher price. I imagine if I had Steve Jobs' real e-mail address and whined about it, he'd come back with something like, "Hey man, I already told you, it's just a hobby."

But it so isn't. Trust me on this one people.The iPod and the iPhone are the only reason he's even still at Apple. They ARE cool and fun and new. Mac and the software tools – they're the hobby, not to the company, but to Steve, ok since Steve is the company…. At least that is sure the look of things.

I'm fine with Steve focusing on Apple TV, that's where I think the focus should be. Huge growth market or slow growth market. Which hobby would you pick?

Sooooo…I'm waiting for my friend to show up and guzzling Diet Coke and watching 24. Because I am watching season 5 exclusively on the iPod, it's going slower than normal because I only watch when I'm out. I haven't made a huge habit of watching the 2" screen at home and have only ever watched the iPod and bed once. I decided I did not want to get into that habit (I haven't had a tv in my bedroom for going on 10 years).

I know this is all a long build up and sadly right now I'm in phase one of my "writing", which is just writing down what I think. I am practicing my thinking. Phase 2 will commence in the middle of July when I begin practicing my editing.

I'm watching 24 on the iPod on a 2" screen looking at the "command center" of the Counter Terrorist Unit where they have some huge 100" jumbotron screen – and on the 2" iPod, my brain still spatially processes the information as if I was looking at a huge 100" jumbotron. That is why I believe portable video will be a fairly well adopted technology in the long run . I consider right now to be the "very early adopter" phase I say that because theoretically I live in one of the top-ten gadget conscious zip codes, and I'm the only one I've ever seen watching portable video in public on a portable device (note, I have seen several people watching video on laptops – I'm talking about stuff you put in your pocket).

I'm sure that will all change the night of June 29, when the fools who just stood in line to buy the iPhone cross the street to stand in line at Pacific Catch. I hope Apple will just give the fools that can't wait a phone with Pirates of the Caribbean already on it so they'll have something to do while they wait in line for their calamari.