The streaming player battle is heating up between Adaobe and Microsoft, with a bunch of smaller also ran’s still in the game jockey for a pice of the booming TVoIP delvery market. Flash 10 extends Adobe’s franchise just as Silverlight 2.0 was announced by Microsoft. This means more online content is coming and it will look and sound better than ever.

Hey duopoly! Where’s our fat pipes?

Adobe on Wednesday will launch Flash Player 10, the latest in its ubiquitous 13-year-old line of multimedia plug-ins. For online video watchers, one big improvement is dynamic streaming, which will automatically shift bitrates as media is being streamed, depending on changing bandwidth. Content owners will need to use an upcoming release of Adobe Media Server to implement this feature.

Other improvements include 3D effects and better support for sound, drawing and text. Adobe has also moved some visual processing tasks to the GPU to improve performance. Support for what’s called RTMFP (Real Time Media Flow Protocol) will turn the player into a managed peer-to-peer environment and should help enable things like multi-user games and online collaboration. (GigaOm)

The people of the smallish burg of Monticello, MN may actually be allowed to build and pay for their own fiber network after all. Defying all conventional logic, the local Telco expected the courts to enforce their total monopoly over fixed line broadband access. This time, sound judgment prevailed. Our corrupt Congress should take notes, and the duopoly should be put on notice. Until we open the market to real competition by private enterprise,we will be seeing more of this.

Just as a service provider should be free to offer whatever level of service it feels is appropriate (in this case relatively slow DSL), a municipality should be free to offer better if they feel that the incumbent is not offering adequate service. The Muni built network is a last resort solution that was arrived at after many attempts to have the monoploy deliver bandwidth that meets current deamnd. If the telco in question, TDS telecom, wanted to preserve its monopoly, they needed to provide satisfactory service instead of suing to force the public to accept less.

(story at StarTribune.com)

We reported on the pending marginalization of AP and Reuters here. Well it seems to be proceeding apace. Last report this move was centered in the Southeast of the US. Now it seems to have spread Westward. –

“I think the AP regional report has fallen off in quantity, and in some ways, quality,” claims Paul Emerson, managing editor at the Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune, which gave notice to AP in September — even though its rates would drop about 17% under the new system. “It is mostly a concern about content.” At least one paper, the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., is challenging AP’s two-year-notice requirement and plans to stop using and paying for the wire service by the end of the year. “The legal point here is that we are not canceling a contract, we are declining to sign a new contract,” says Editor Steve Smith, who admits a $30,000 expected savings in 2009, but says the remaining $375,000 AP bill is too high. “More editors are feeling disenfranchised and disregarded by AP.”

AP officials declined to comment for this story. But AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll, addressing the rate issue during the Associated Press Managing Editors conference in Las Vegas last month, told a group of newspaper editors there, “we certainly hope that the basic fundamentals of the economy and the marketplace will firm up enough so that the pressure is off some of the people who own the AP.”

But even with promised AP cuts, editors have been dissatisfied, saying they cannot afford it. Others have claimed the news content is not what they need, particularly with regard to regional and state coverage. “We are exploring our options to see what our outs are,” says Ben Marrison, editor of The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch and one of eight Ohio editors who wrote jointly to AP in late 2007 to complain. “All of our department heads are exploring what it would mean if we had AP or did not have AP.”

First thing I have noticed is that these ‘revolts’ have been principally in the smaller paper concerns. Those companies where the brunt of the AP/Reuters bills are borne. The bigger concerns get rate cut deals that the smaller guys are not afforded. So it makes sense.

But there is opportunity here that I don’t think the regionals have considered yet. The papers are banding together to provide regional coverage. But why not take that concept national? From an IT perspective it would not take much. Only a small server to maintain the bibliographic reference. The content would stay with the source papers computers. When a request comes in from the clearing house the source paper sends the article on.

The logical next step? Computerized assignment coverage. No use 6 regional papers sending 6 reporters on the same story when 2 would do. Saves labor. For the reporters it also provides an avenue for national byline that generally only are earned by being at the NYT, AJC or LAT. Editors still reserve who they send. The computer determines who is next up in the queue so that costs are shared by every paper in the consortium.

Willing to lay bets somebody in the pulp media will figure this out.

Linky.

Serdar Yegulalp has a piece over at Information Week that the current recession we are all about to live through will be a big opening for Open Source. Irony is I tend to agree but reasons different from what he espouses. Give a read –

Here’s what I see happening: Companies that have a solid history of experience with marketing and supporting open source — e.g., Red Hat, and also sensible folks like Alfresco and SugarCRM and so on — will weather this without too much difficulty. If they’ve learned how to run lean and mean from the beginning to stay ahead of the commercial competition, that experience will all pay off here. Those who started small, and stayed small and fleet on their feet, will live all this down. Not only that, but a few of them will emerge as model examples for how open source makes economic sense in both good times and bad.

But folks who have transitioned from a proprietary model to an open model (whole or partial) — Novell (NSDQ: NOVL), Sun certainly, a smattering of smaller vendors — are going to get pinched hard. Those who still have the habits gleaned from so many years of selling and supporting proprietary software will have a tougher time of it. The really big folks –IBM (NYSE: IBM), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) — also will feel pinched, but they’re spread out through so many different markets that they won’t bleed as heavily.

Now why do I think he is wrong even though he is right? Well first why he is right. If you are an open source vendor then typically you are selling neither hardware or software. The customer buys the iron and the software is available for download. These companies sell a service-warranty to the enterprise. In that model one HAS to be lean and mean. Serdar also properly diagnoses that coming from commercial to going open source is not a survivable model. The proprietary software industry is too involved in sales, commissions and product entrenchment that cannot be supported by a open source model.

What Serdar misses. Ubiquity. The hall mark of a great FOSS product is its sheer breadth of deployment. Take Open Office, Red Hat, Centos, memcache, or a 100 other FOSS items. They are spread far and wide. That Ubiquity is both a boon and a bane. A boon as a service provider you will be needed. So Red Hat playing their cards right may very well see service contract growth during a recession. Or will they? The bane is a product like Centos. Its a Red Hat knock off. All perfectly legal. 95% of all the VPS server providers will have Centos OS as an offering.

The point? FOSS will gain greatly during this recession and WE WILL NEVER KNOW IT. The reason is that Ubiquity again. In most companies, if they already have some FOSS in production they have some individual knowledgeable on support. That persons role will be expanded and others will be encouraged to learn those skills. All under the radar.

The other is competitive advantage. The CIO will shift the usage to FOSS and not a peep will be heard from. In a competitive market place you don’t telegraph what is keeping you afloat and bashing the hell out of the other guy. You don’t telegraph success lest it be copied by your competition.

We’ll see who is right in a year or so.

Linky.

We have said several times here that at some point carriers are going to have to choose what they are — an entertainment provider or a data transport provider. In the market you can’t wear both hats. Like cattle, carriers can’t carry more than one brand in the marketplace on their hide. With the market meltdown of the last 2 weeks that decision point is neigh —

American shoppers went into hiding in September, sticking to buying the bare-bone essentials and leading many retailers to report dismal sales for the month as skittish consumers grappled with the financial meltdown spreading around the globe.

The weak reports on Wednesday — an alarming gauge of consumer behavior since the meltdown began midway through last month — are fueling more worries about the holiday season and the overall economy, since consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of all economic activity.

Given the sharp falloff in sales and customer traffic, many retailers, including Target (TGT), J.C. Penney (JCP), Kohl’s (KSS), Saks (SKS) and Nordstrom (JWN) cut their outlooks as they use aggressive discounts to pull in shell-shocked shoppers.

Just the tip of the iceberg folks. Americans will be buying coats and shoes rather then a new XBox for Johnny. The household budget is going to get looked at too. Why carry premium channels, HD, internet and phone? Well the pitch was relative cost averaging to get all those services in one bundle from a single supplier. Well in a downturn that gets thrown out the window. Absolute cost will reign supreme. Premium channels — gone, HD — gone, basic cable — for many gone. They will probably keep the internet access. They need that for email and the job search. Besides if you think about it, a NetFlix account and TVoIP is a rock bottom entertainment choice.

For the carriers, its crunch time! The first decision they need to make is which are they? If they continue with the entertainment play they risk seeing massive swaths of revenue if not down right user base go right down the drain. Changing brand to a data carrier means you survive but at a much reduced revenue level. But at least you survive. Somebody like DirectTV, I don’t see how they make it if the economy is sour for a long period of time.

Content providers like Sony, MGM, et. al. will be looking longingly at cutting the middleman out finally. Keep that slice for themselves. Traditional broadcast suppliers CBS, NBC, ABC could very well say ‘to hell with the affiliates!’ partner with their production providers, ink a deal with Hulu and go direct with TVoIP. Even niche players like BET, CBN might band together as a channel house and go TVoIP. Bottom line, we are likely to see supply chain collapse in the entertainment industry with the channel providers cut out.

Other than raising rates and applying caps what are the carriers going to do? But it is time to choose.

Linky.

In what has to be close to the end of the road for the carriers the Supreme Court has refused to review several state level appeals . Another words, lacks merit and most likely is established law. ‘No new ground here, move along…’ —

The Supreme Court dealt the wireless industry a setback by declining to review lower court rulings that found T-Mobile USA Inc.’s arbitration clause in service contracts do not prevent subscribers from lodging class-action lawsuits against the No. 4 mobile-phone carrier.

Opening a new term, the high court also let stand an Illinois appeals court decision affirming class certification of a 48-state early-termination fee class-action lawsuit against Sprint Nextel Corp. As a result, class-action complaints against T-Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel will move forward.

The carriers have 2 choices –

1. Move forward with a full scale deployment of MtM plans as many are now doing as an option. In the same motion killing the need for ETF’s and arbitration and the contracts in which they reside. Or…
2. Take their battle to the Congress thru their K Street minions. Only problem here is Congress has just gotten a big case of whoopa$$ about the bailout bill. I don’t think they will have a stomach for another round of corporate welfare to get beat on anytime soon.

My guess is that in the near term in States where the courts have ruled MtM plans will be brought prominently to the table as user choices.

Linky

LiveStream has in the past been a closed model for acessing live content via the web. Well the have changed the model and updated some aspects of the software –

The world’s leading TV channels

There are two types of channels you can watch on the Livestation player, our partner channels and those added by other Livestation viewers.

Partner channels: available in high quality, our partner channels currently include Al Jazeera English, BBC World News, Bloomberg Television, Deutsche Welle, euronews (English, French, Italian and Spanish), France 24 in French and English, Russia Today, BBC World Service radio and Deutsche Welle radio in German and English.

Add your own channels: Livestation also enables viewers to add any web streams to their own personal Livestation player. A Livestation viewer, Bernard Maltais, created this excellent tutorial. These channels may not have the same picture quality as the Livestation partner channels, and, because they are not being streamed by us, they won’t benefit from the features listed above, but they do offer added personal choice.

User-generated rating & alert system: What’s Hot & Chat

What’s Hot enables you to let others know about the content that interests you, with the click of the mouse, as you watch live TV. When you see or hear something interesting being broadcast on the player, you can hit the What’s Hot button and add your comments. If others are buzzing about the same content, the item will rise to the top of the What’s Hot buzz rankings, enabling everyone to see what is popular and, if they like it, to tune in.

Big deal? Well for LiveStation, its a move in the right direction. But this is just another indication of the shift to TVoIP. When TVoIP reaches critical mass then what? –

• TV broadcast licenses will drop in value. Not a little, but a lot.
• Revenues will shift to the content aggregators/providers.
• There will be a supply chain collapse even in the content aggregators as individual production house can now operate their own channels.
• Content will become more diverse and even further fragmented.
• The longtail theory will finally apply to live video. With the ability to call up episodes of shows long since aired they will have permanence.

Please note that though LiveStation is provided free its is not open source product.

Brave new world coming for the entertainment industry.

Linky

Following on the Bosses eBay notation below on the layoffs. Do take note that eBay is also doing acquisitions in Europe. An ancillary service in one case, a competitor in another —

It also announced the acquisition of an online payments business, Bill Me Later, for $820 million in cash and $125 million in options, and two online classified sites based in Denmark for about $390 million.

“While never an easy decision to make, these reductions will help improve our operations and strengthen our ability to continue investing in growth,” said John Donahue, eBay Inc.’s president and CEO.

Bill Me Later will work in conjunction with eBay’s Pay Pal, and the classified sites, dba.dk and bilbasen.dk, will help them expand in Europe, says Donahue.

EBay has a minority stake in Craigslist in the U.S., and currently owns several properties in Europe, including Kijiji, Gumtree, Marktplaats, LoQUo and mobile.de. It recently announced a plan to further ramp up investments in its classified sites.

A report in Barron’s last month described the business as “deteriorating,” and rumored that the company might cut up to 1,500 employees.

eBay has screwed the model up so bad I never go there but as a last resort.

Linky

It may be time for me (and you) to flee the Death Star. An accounting ploy to improve cash flow is being executed at our expense. Without warning, you will be paying AT&T ahead instead of arrears. This will double the amount you usually pay on you next bill.

AT&T has discovered that the commercial paper it relies on is now a lot more difficult to get, causing a bit of a cash crunch for the company. So how is it dealing with it? By pushing that cash crunch to you. Rather than its usual habit of billing you for the month that just past, AT&T is telling customers it’s now billing them for the month ahead — meaning that your latest bill may be double (paying for last month and next month). Effectively, AT&T is changing the credit terms on its customers, from net 30 to prepay. (Techdirt)

It should come as no surprise that AT&T is no no hurry to deploy 4G. Much of the 700MHz spectrum acquired by the telcos will lie dormant in the early years after it opens if all goes according to plan for the Death Star. While the duopoly’s Dark Side (AT&T and Verizon) have successfully stalled national WiMax deployment with the help of bumbling Sprint management, they have delayed the need to improve services needed to stay competitive. With only AT&T and Verizon holding national 700MHz licenses, there is not much room for any new entrants to force a change of plan either. They have 10 years under the license agreement to switch on service and the telcos have been very good at pushing back requirements (like 100% fiber to home by the year 2000).

Speaking at the 4G Executive Summit on Tuesday, AT&T’s VP of Architecture Hank Kafka downplayed any perceived urgency on the part of the carrier to push out a 4G network based on LTE, or the so-called Long Term Evolution standard.

He said AT&T’s existing HSPA 3G network already offers a superior mobile broadband experience to that of its primary rival Verizon, whose EV-DO technology sports a limited future.  (Apple Insider)

The dominant charateristic of the Third World is corrupt dictatorhsips create a small number of cabals by eliminating competition to retain absolute power. If this sounds familiar to the current direction of US broadband, then it’s time to change course before it’s too late. What our duopoly and goverment fail to understand is that a smaller piece of a larger market is still more than 100% of a smaller market.