Walmart bought VUDU

The news was on the wire on February 22nd. Wal mart paid 50 Million USD to acquire Vudu.

Vudu movies streams movies to users over their broadband connection directly into TV sets. Users without compatible televisions need to purchase a set-top box.

I believe this is the beginning of a series of retail stores coming into the content & telecom businesses. It is true that Wal Mart currently sells DVDs in-store and Vudu in a way will compete with their existing business.

But Wal Mart is positionning itself as a provider of (among other things) consumer electronics goods. By acquiring Vudu it can now sell/rent movies in TV sets or rent physical DVD.

Mobile World Congress 2010 My review

• Few attended the congress: 49 000 compare to 2008 55 000
• The OS war is back: this will delight the software houses! They have, now, to develop for at least 3 to 5 OS for 1 application
• Windows 7, Bada: innovation?
• Android on the rise: At the end of every Android Developers conference the question was how many of you have an Android Phone, as there were only 20 to 30 that rose their hands. Android’s guys were giving away free Nexus One to all of the non-android users!
• App Planet: lots of mobile advertising / marketing companies / social interactions / IM / location based services – met interesting mobile betting and paid gaming company spin3- saw only 1 company dealing with medical applications – none on the business side
• LTE: Up – WiMAX: Down

Note: One Web Any device isn’t it the beginning of the end for them?

MWC Tuesday 16th

Monday saw the rising of a Global App Store (24 Operators), Bada, Samsung Wave, well the look & feel is better than the Nexus One. And the video quality is much higher.

Samsung truly comes with a convergent approach, Bada its OS, its Samsung Apps for Mobile & TV…its netbooks and now its eBooks

I was surprized by Gemalto’s Strategic moves…acquired a control stake in Netsize, acquired a small company in for Contacts applications…I believe that their strategy towards services is finally coming true. I am guessing their next move might be in the TV space…

Mobile World Congress 2010

This year, having discussed with co-attendees, expectations will be on:

• Network infrastructure – How to put more data in an already filled pipe?
• LTE – Will telecom operators invest massively on the 4G?
• Mobile Applications – How to leverage on the iPhone experience to the other platforms?
• Mobile Phones – New terminal from Samsung, LG and …the Zune Phone?

More to come…in the next days!

Google to acquire Admob for $750M

What was originaly planned finally happened. Admob, from the beginning of its life, thought of being acquired by Google i.e this was their Exit Strategy.

The question is who’s next now.  Buzz City was in close competition with Admob. Big Internet Giants are going shopping pretty soon into mobile advertising networks.

New Video from the authors of Did You Know

The Gen Y guide to Web 2.0 at work

The Gen Y Guide to Web 2.0 at Work

View more presentations from Sacha Chua.

After Web 2.0 the Web² {square}

If Woz ran Apple – a nice pic by the Joy of Tech

Once your TV is connected…

I believe the future of video consumption on TV will be driven by 3 things:

1. Watching Live content (mainly sports, news, events, TV series, reality show)

2. Access to On-Demand content through recommendations, social networks,from Internet

3. User Experience -a simple, easy and convergent interface, TV, Web & Mobile – and soon to come is the 3D technology (see finepix real 3D)

Of course the device on which you will watch this content will just depend on “where you are” when you want to watch it.

In this post I will focus more on companies aiming at providing video services directly to end users, mostly without going through a Pay-TV provider.