Michael's Insight

ESPN launches blog detailing behind-the-scenes at the network

ESPN Front Row blog shows behind the scenes at the sports giant [EngadgetHD]

ESPN is indisputably synonymous with the world of sports.  The company has created an entire family of conventional TV sports channels, including leading in 3D. They've added multiple sport and geographically specific websites, a successful print and online magazine and, let's not forget, online streaming. Now ESPN has launched a new blog that provides an inside look at…ESPN.  Welcome to the blogosphere!!

The new Front Row blog gives an inside look to the day-to-day operations of the network. The blog also goes behind-the-scenes with some of the network’s well-known personalities.

Front Row launched with a 24 hour series of behind-the-scenes photos and videos starring ESPN journalist Kenny Mayne and other members of the ESPN cast and crew. 

This is a testament to the success of ESPN. There aren’t many other channels out there that could see a lot of interest in a behind-the-scenes blog.

You can check out the blog here: espnfrontrow.com

 

 

FTC commissioner outlines concerns regarding Google, other tech giants

FTC commissioner: Beware of Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft [Politico]

According to J. Thomas Rosch, commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, entrepreneurial garage inventors need to beware.  Rosch spoke Wednesday about his concerns regarding four large tech companies - Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. 

Rosch’s concern is that these four companies could make it extremely difficult for upstart companies to enter the Internet advertising market. The FTC has concerns that those four companies have become so big that they could manipulate the market in their favor.

Rosch pointed to Google’s search methods, Facebook’s huge friend population, Apple’s app store, and Microsoft’s alliance with Facebook as signifying a highly concentrated advertising market. 

He also pointed to a proposed FTC proposal regarding advertising that could actually work against ensuring upstarts have the ability to truly compete. For instance, the FTC has proposed requiring browsers to install a “Do Not Track” tool to prevent tracking advertisements. Rosch’s opinion is that the big players will be able to find ways to work around this type of regulation while smaller players will be the most impacted.

Rosch's remarks came on the same day that the FTC ordered Google to submit to regular privacy audits for the next 20 years. That action awaits a full commission vote.

Netflix giving Canadian customers video quality settings to reduce broadband consumption

Netflix Reduces Video Quality To Limit Canadian Cap Impact [Broadband Reports]

Netflix is responding to some Canadian ISP's implementation of broadband service caps by giving customers the option of decreasing the amount of bandwidth consumed while streaming its videos.

Canadian Netflix customers will now have the ability to choose between three different video settings.

The lowest setting, which is now enabled as the default, has a video quality of 625 Kbps and audio output of 64 Kbps. Netflix estimates that if a customer watched 30 hours of streaming video in a month, that customer would only use a total of 9 GB. Similar viewing with Netflix’s former video settings could use as much as 70 GB. 

The second setting limits video to 1200 Kbps and audio to 284 Kbps. Thirty hours would use roughly 20 GB.  The highest quality setting streams video as high as 4800 kbps (HD video) and 384 kbps for Dolby 5.1 audio. Thirty hours would consume about 67 GB.

Under a cap like the one Comcast (in the US) has at 250 GB, streaming at the highest usage HD rate would still give customers around 112 hours of Netflix viewing. However, the Netflix streaming consumption settings are currently only available for Canadian customers.

Amazon launches cloud music service

Amazon beats Apple, Google to music storage, streaming service [ArsTechnica]

Amazon customers in the U.S. now have access to 5 GB of space on Amazon’s new Cloud Drive to store unencrypted AAC or MP3 music files in that space and access them from multiple devices. 

There had plenty of speculation about a similar type of music service being developed by Apple or Google, but Amazon has beaten those two to the punch. Amazon is also allowing customers to store other files, not just music files, meaning that Cloud Drive could become a competitor to cloud services like the popular Dropbox. 

Customers who purchase an album from Amazon will be automatically upped to 20Gb. MP3 purchases from Amazon will be automatically stored on the Cloud Drive and will not count against the 20Gb total.

Amazon Cloud Drive is also included in the Amazon MP3 Android app. If you’re an iPhone/iPod/iPad user, it's unlikely that Apple will give this iTunes competitor the green light.

In recent years, Apple has been the dominant player in the digital music market. Meanwhile, more recently Google’s has been working on its own online music service but, for now, Amazon has grabbed the lead in the cloud-based music world with it's new service.

AT&T customers raise concerns regarding broadband usage meter accuracy

AT&T Tweaks Meters [Multichannel News]

Recently AT&T announced they would begin putting usage caps on wireline broadband customers - both DSL and U-Verse. Those caps are set to be launched in fewer than 6 weeks, yet AT&T is still working out the kinks of how to inform its users of the amount of bandwidth being consumed on their networks.

Several users of the AT&T forums on Broadband Reports have commented that AT&T's broadband usage tracker doesn't match usage statistics from other independent tracking methods.

For its part, AT&T says that it's working to improve its tracking tool and to "ensure accuracy."

The caps AT&T intends to impose will be set at 150Gb for regular DSL users and 250Gb for U-verse users. A fee of $10 will be charged for every additional 50Gb used.

Louisville TV market ratings of regional basketball final surpass Super Bowl

Kentucky’s Monstrous TV Ratings [Louisville Courier-Journal]

On Sunday, the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team advanced to its first Final Four in 13 years, and it seems just about everyone in the Louisville television market was watching. 

The game averaged a rating of 37, which includes all televisions in Louisville. The peak of this average occurred during the last part of the game, when the ratings grew to 44.3. The game also had an average share of 56 percent of the TVs that were turned on during that period in Louisville. This share also peaked at the end of the game, rising to a 63 share. 

These ratings were higher than the Super Bowl that aired in February. For comparison, CSI: Miami, the popular show that also aired on Sunday, had an 11 rating and 17 percent share.

The Louisville television market is known nationally as the top market for March Madness - with the highest ratings for the college basketball tournament of all TV markets year after year.

The Regional Final ratings were also higher than the Sweet 16 matchup between UK and Ohio State.  That game drew and average rating of 34 and a 49 percent share.

Overall, ratings for the tournament nationally are up 11 percent over last year due to the tournment games being split between CBS and cable networks TBS, TNT and TruTV, allowing viewers to watch every game from tipoff to the final horn. 

Programmers and broadcasters challenging TWC iPad app

Time Warner Cable in iPad video spat [Financial Times]

After Time Warner Cable introduced the first live streaming iPad app last week, some programmers and broadcasters are crying foul - indicating that they don't believe that the nation's second largest cable provider has the rights to distribute programming on the device. The Financial Times reports that Scripps is objecting to HGTV appearing on the app. Broadband Reports has reported that broadcasters are preparing a lawsuit againt Time Warner Cable (TWC) over the app.

TWC's app provides 32 channels of programming for video and broadband customers on the iPad. The app authenticates from a customer's home broadband connection, which means that the channels are available within range of a wi-fi router in the home just like the same channels can be viewed on a customer's television in the home. The app will not work when connected to another Internet connection.

It seems quite a stretch to me for programmers to make this claim.  They allow Internet aggregators such as Roku, Hulu, and Apple TV to deliver their product to any device that's within wireless range.  But they cry foul when Time Warner does the same exact thing.

For its part, TWC is not backing down from the programmer/broadcaster challenge. The company's spokesman told the Financial Times that TWC is not removing the channels on the app and will be adding "functionality and breadth" to the app.

Signing certificate hack brings vulnerability to light

Comodo flap highlights browser security differences [CNET News]

Last week it was revealed that a hacker had breached the system that authenticates web sites for browsers using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), creating fake digital certificates that would allow malicious web sites to pose as authentic sites from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other companies. Obviously this is a significant breach, and if it went undetected it would have left most major web browsers and their users subject to having otherwise secure data transfers exploited.

Currently there are around 1,500 different authorities that can create secure digital certificates. Browser developers - Microsoft, Mozilla, Google, Apple and Opera - decide whether they're going to allow their browser to trust the certificates from each authority. If they're on the list of trusted authorites, users will see that sites using those certificates are secure. Unfortunately, in this case a hacker was able to inflitrate an authority that is trusted by all major browsers.

At this point, the spoofed certificates were revoked by the signing authority as soon as they were discovered, so there's no immediate threat posed to users as a result of this incident. However, the fact that signing certificates could be compromised and browsers would recognize fake certificates as legitimate highlights a significnat vulnerability in the architecture of the web that is likely to be scrutizied under a microscope in the wake of this attack.

Starz to delay content to Netflix

Starz to Delay Some Content On Netflix [Wall Street Journal]

The same week that CBS announced that it wouldn't be renewing a deal for Showtime content with Netflix after it expires this summer, Liberty Media Corp. announced that its Starz premium channel will add a 90 day window between the date its original content airs and when it appears on Netflix. Shows like Starz' "Camelot" won't appear on the online streaming service until three months after they've been on television.

Last week Netflix made news for plans to purchase episodes of series that will be directed by David Fincher. The show would air exclusively for Netflix subscribers.

According to Starz, this is just the first phase in delaying content that goes to Netflix. Movies that run exclusively on the channel will also expereince a delay window before they hit Netflix.

Number of P2P users decreases

9% Of Users Use P2P [Broadband Reports]

Research firm NPD Group has released some new data regarding usage of P2P in the United States. Over the past three years, the percentage of users in the U.S. that use P2P has dropped from 16% down to 9%. 

In a similar report last fall from Cisco, a similar decrease was found, though Cisco determined 25% of all usage was P2P traffic, down from 38%.

It should be noted that this percentage of usage isn’t a direct reflection of online piracy. P2P does include some legitimate forms of data transfer. P2P has been a target of antipiracy efforts due to the high percentage of pirated content being shared via P2P.

March Madness' popularity grows through cable and mobile streaming availability

 A Lot of You Have Watched March Madness on the iPhone and iPad App [Gizmodo]

The first weekend of March Madness (otherwise known as the least productive weekend of the year, particularly in our service area) has come and gone and the viewership numbers are higher than ever.

A while back, it was announced that, for the first time ever, every tournament game would be televised on a national TV network -- on CBS, TBS, TNT, or TruTV. Then came the announcement that the games would be staggered so that fewer games would overlap and everyone could enjoy the final minutes of each game. Finally, the iPad and iPhone apps were released, which allowed users to stream live games to their devices.

Overall online streaming of March Madness games was up an impressive 47% compared to last year’s opening weekend. This increase was driven in large part by the new iPad and iPhone apps, which contributed more than one-third (36%) of all online streaming of tournament games.

In past years, March Madness On Demand was only available through the website and could not be accessed on mobile devices. The website was so popular that in past years many businesses blocked the site both to encourage employees to pay attention to their jobs and to keep their networks from collapsing. Perhaps that’s why the mobile apps saw so much success. 

On the other hand, this could simply show how people are beginning to favor mobile streaming over the more traditional methods.  And remember, fast Internet connections are critical to keeping that trend on track.

CBS' Showtime pulling content from Netflix

CBS will pull Showtime content from Netflix [The Hill]

CBS isn’t hiding the fact that it views Netflix as a potential threat, particularly the premium subscriber business. CBS, which owns Showtime, has recently decided to pull some of the premium network's programming from Netflix.

That's got to be painful for Netflix.  Showtime has some of the most critically acclaimed programs on television.  And now, shows like "Dexter" won't be available on Netflix after its deal with CBS/Showtime expires this summer.

This announcement comes on the heels of Netflix’s announcement of a deal to exclusively air the new first-run series, “House of Cards.” This marked the first time Netflix aired its own original content and was a vast departure from the company’s past business model. 

Undoubtedly, Showtime saw this move to original content as a new direction for Netflix that put it more at odds with traditional premium subscription services.

This announcement didn't sever ties between CBS and Netflix completely, however. Last month the two announced a deal for CBS content that is no longer on the air to appear on the streaming video service.

 

 

 

MySpace traffic continues to decline

Amazingly, MySpace’s Decline Is Accelerating [TechCrunch]

Other than the sheer number of people that have flocked to Facebook, there's nothing that illustrates its dominance in social networking than the steep decline in traffic to MySpace. Once the dominant social networking site in terms of members and overall traffic, MySpace traffic declined nearly 15 percent from January to February of this year according to a report from net metrics firm Comscore.

In February, MySpace had 63 million visitors, down from 73 million in January. Since February of 2010, visitors to the site decreased 43.2 percent. 

Facebook surpassed 500 million members nearly one year ago. Google estimates that MySpace has only 34 million active members. 

MySpace's traffic decline appears to be accellerating according to the most recent month's worth of data. If the current monthly rate of traffic decline were to continue for the next year, it would mean the loss of more than 50 million visitors to the site each month - likely ending the site's viability.

Adobe releasing streaming video authentication service

Adobe Pass to push multidevice video rights [CNET News]

Adobe is looking to get into the evolving TV Everywhere landscape with the introduction of a new service called Adobe Pass. The company is seeking to keep its Adobe Flash platform relevant as cable providers move video services out to the web and mobile apps by providing rights management options for Flash and HTML5 video content.

Adobe Pass promises to run from within a user's current browser without an additional download required, enabling providers to authenticate customers for video playback. Because it's able to deal with both Flash and HTML5 video, Adobe Pass will run on PCs, Macs, and a wide range of mobile devices - including iOS devices without Flash support.

The bottom line with Adobe Pass is that providers will have soon have the ability to stream programming to the web to authenticated customers with an off-the-shelf solution.

Apple sues Amazon to protect "App Store" trademark

Apple sues Amazon over 'App Store' trademark [CNET News]

If you're thinking of opening up your own app store like Amazon plans to for the Android mobile platform, you might want to think twice if you're planning on calling it an "app store." Before the expected debut of the Amazon Appstore, Apple has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Amazon. Apple registered the term "App Store" as a trademark when it unveiled the concept with the iPhone 3G. 

Because Android is an open-source mobile OS, anyone can create their own application market. For now, Google runs the dominant Android application market, but Amazon aims to create its own developer program and storefront in an attempt to cash in on the growing Android user base.

Apple's App Store concept took off with the iPhone and iPad - with hundreds of thousands of apps available for purchase and download. Apple recently expanded the App Store to its Mac computers - creating the Mac App Store. Given the ready identification of the App Store with Apple, its not surprising that it is looking to protect its trademark against a competing mobile operating system application marketplace.

Independent film to be distributed via P2P along with studio DVD release

Paramount Pictures, BitTorrent team up to distribute feature film [Engadget]

Usually if you see a movie studio and BitTorrent in a headline together it’s an article about fighting over online piracy. BitTorrent has found itself in the middle of the anti-piracy battle because of the large amount of illegally copied material that is transmitted around the Internet using the P2P protocol.

Movie studios, understandably, are extremely cautious about involvement with P2P. 

With that said, there’s no denying the large numbers of P2P users, particularly BitTorrent, and some studios believe that by working with the P2P sites and offering approved material, they can actually cut down on the overall amount of pirated content.

That’s precisely what's happening with one idependent film - The Tunnel. The movie will be distributed via BitTorrent for free at the same time of its DVD release by Paramount Pictures.

Don't look for this to become commonplace, however. The film itself is a bit of an anomaly. An Australian company named Distracted Media helped create the film by implementing a scheme to sell individual investors the movie’s individual frames in order to finance the film.

Cisco demos DOCSIS 3.0 at 1.5+ Gbps

Cisco Pushes DOCSIS 3.0 Past 1.5 Gig [Multichannel News]

Cisco demonstrated another milestone in the DOCSIS 3.0 standard at the CableLabs Winter Conference recently. CableLabs is the research and development consortium for the cable industry which maintains the DOCSIS cable modem standard. 

Using 48 bonded channels, Cisco was able to achieve a nearly 1.6 Gbps downstream broadband speed and 300 Mbps upstream at the conference. The demonstration was achieved with Cisco equipment that can bond up to 72 downstream and 60 upstream channels. 

While we're still a number of years away from seeing these kind of speeds made available commercially, they're yet another testament to the scalability of DOCSIS 3.0 when it comes to delivering the fastest broadband speeds today and tomorrow.

 

iOS 4.3 runs web apps slower

Apple Confirms Web App Slowdown in iOS 4.3 [Gizmodo]

If you've updated your iPhone or iPad to iOS 4.3 and noticed that some applications are loading web pages more slowly than the Safari browser since the upgrade, there's a reason. When Apple made changes to Safari's JavaScript engine for iOS 4.3 that sped up the loading of web pages, it didn't make those same changes to embedded web viewer that some iOS apps use.

As a result, web apps run 2 to 2 and a half times slower when they're running through any app besides the iOS Safari browser.

Apple released iOS 4.3 with the debut of the iPad 2.

While Apple has confirmed the issue it isn't commenting on whether there's a fix coming for those apps, users can get the advantage of the new JavaScript engine by using Safari to load pages rather than the embedded web viewer.

New York Times begins requiring subscription for online articles

NYT rolls out online pay wall [The Hill]

Perhaps in an effort to find a successful business model for the 21st century, the New York Times will charge readers a $15 monthly subscription fee for access to all of its online content.

The newspaper recently added a pay wall to its website that blocks users' access to their content unless the user has paid the subscription. Users will be able to view up to 20 pages a month for free before being asked for a digital subscription. And idividual articles found through search engines or social media will continue to be available.

Subscribers to the New York Times’ print edition will receive a complimentary subscription to the digital edition, and users of the Times iPad app will only have to pay an additional $5 per month. A full digital subscription that provides access to smartphone and digital apps will run $35 per month.

It’s a move that the newspaper made to stave off declining subscriber losses for its printed product in favor of the online version. The New York Times is one of the biggest newspapers to implement this type of pay wall, and while some readers may not be thrilled with the development, Wall Street was impressed. The newspaper’s shares jumped more than 5 percent after the announcement.

 

Samsung debuts glasses-free 3DTV prototype

Samsung shows off 55-inch glasses-free 3D TV prototype [Engadget]

We’ve seen a few similar prototypes from other manufacturers and now Samsung is joining the movement for glasses-free 3DTV. 

At the FPD tradeshow in China, Samsung has unveiled a 55-inch 3DTV prototype that is able to display nine different viewpoints of 3D without any glasses requirement. Further, the set can be switched easily from 3D to 2D via an LCD panel layered on top of the main LCD. By changing the optical refraction index of that LCD panel, the TV will switch from 3D to 2D. 

The prototype released was created with a direct-lit CCFL backlight, but Samsung suggested that the set will have LED by the time it is released. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this set or anything like it will be available for at least a few years. Still, it’s good to see developments in the glassless 3D movement, and it will be interesting to see if these types of TV’s eventually find their way into the marketplace.

 

Ohio University faces bandwidth crunch from streaming video use

Ohio University Blocks Netflix, Backpedals [GigaOM]

The growing popularity of Netflix and other streaming video services among college students has managed to max out at least one university's network, prompting it to attempt to block Netflix. Ohio University's Technology Department observed that sixty percent of its network bandwidth was being consumed by streaming video and Netflix alone accounted for 28 percent of traffic, causing severe network congestion.

In an effort to eliminate the traffic jam, The school added ten percent to their total bandwidth. When that effort didn't resolve the issue as users immediately consumed the additional capacity. Then, the university's Technology Department tried to isolate and block the Netflix traffic. That resulted in shutting down the entire university network connection to the Internet - not exactly a case study in successful network management. 

Now the university has limited connections to a maximum of 5 Mbps downstream in an attempt to get a handle on the issue of streaming video bandwidth consumption.

Several years ago, universities faced a bandwidth crunch caused by P2P downloads. That's no longer the case if Ohio University's situation is typcial. Only 6 percent of their overall bandwidth load is from P2P protocol use.

OU is experiencing a very common problem for all ISP's today as the Internet is being utilized in ways it was never originally intended or designed for. I know that all responsible providers work diligently to keep up with demand but sometimes find themselves playing catch up where heavy usage is abundant. Some, like AT&T, are setting monthly caps for usage while others are switching to some form of metered billing for usage, much like the cellular phone companies charge.

Twitter implements SSL protections

Twitter adds option to always use HTTPS [CNET News]

Twitter is giving users some additional protection against hackers intent on stealing passwords from users of the social networking service. Now Twitter users have the option of accessing the site using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption via the https://www.twitter.com URL with a setting that always directs the user to that URL without having to browse directly to it.

Users can select "always use https" under their Twitter settings to force their browser to use the SSL connection.

The use of SSL prevents hackers on an open Wi-Fi network - at a restaurant or airport, for instance - from using a packet sniffer to obtain password information or other data passed between a user and Twitter.

The use of SSL for web sites was championed by Senator Chuck Schumer earlier this year in a letter addressed to Twitter, Amazon and Yahoo requesting that they improve the security of their users.

 

Netflix in discussions to buy rights to an original series

Netflix in Talks for Original Series [Wall Street Journal]

Netflix may be crossing the line from simply a distributor of TV reruns and movies to a program originator, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. The Internet's top video streaming company is in talks to purchase 26 episodes of a political drama titled "House of Cards." The show, based on a British mini-series, will star Kevin Spacey and will be directed by David Fincher.

With 20 million subscribers by the end of 2010, Netflix already has a larger potential audience for the series than some premium cable channels like Starz and Showtime but still less than HBO with 28 million subscribers. A report released this week by NPD indicates that Netflix is responsible for 61 percent of all digital movie viewing, more than Apple and Amazon combined.

The potential deal would give Netflix the rights to air the series online before any other channel is able to carry it. 

 

 

Time Warner Cable releases iPad app with live streaming video

Time Warner Cable Now Streaming Live TV on the iPad [GigaOM]

Time Warner Cable and Comcast, the nation’s largest cable operators, have been working to bring cable programming mobile devices, starting with the iPad.

Recently, Comcast announced mobile viewing of on-demand titles through its iPad app. The app allows Comcast subscribers to view a limited number of titles from Comcast’s TV Everywhere partners. Comcast expressed interest in streaming live TV to the iPad, but has not yet made that feature available to its customers.

Time Warner Cable has now taken that step and released an iPad app that allows any Time Warner customer to stream live cable programming. The app is currently limited to streaming currently airing programs, within the customer's home.  Other features like on-demand video and DVR programs could be added in the future. For now, the app is currently limited to around 30 channels that Time Warner has been able to negotiate a deal with the programmers to stream to mobile devices.

In order to use the app, the customer must be a Time Warner Cable video and broadband subscriber, and can only access the live streams over a Time Warner Cable subscriber’s Wi-Fi network. This means that the app is designed to allow customers to watch your cable content in their home.

Time Warner Cable's app is freely available on Apple's App Store.  I've downloaded and will try it out sometime soon.  More later.

ESPN analysis shows less than one-fifth of one percent cut the cord in past three months

Cord-Cutting Greatly Exaggerated: ESPN Study [Multichannel News]

ESPN took a look at Nielsen's latest numbers in an effort to quantify cord-cutting. It defined cord-cutters as households that retain their broadband Internet, but drop their regular subscription TV service. ESPN analyzed Neilsen samples and found that a mere 0.18% of American households fit that description between the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011.

Further, that percentage is a decrease from the 0.28% who cut the TV cord between the third quarter and fourth of 2010. Also, the 0.18% was offset by a similar number of people who moved from over-the-air to subscription TV service, meaning that the net loss between the two evened out at roughly zero.

What’s perhaps even more interesting is that, of the households that fit ESPN’s “cord-cutter” description, the vast majority (over 70%) were not heavy or even middle-of-the-road streamers. This means that over 70% of the “cord-cutters” were light or non-streamers, who are not watching significant amounts of online video to make up for their subscription TV loss.