Do you Sling? …I do

An article from the NyTimes talked about the future of Sling Media and its flag-ship product: the Sling Box.

The editor starts by a glimpse on what could be heaven for a TV fan:

Technology evangelists and television aficionados want all their TV on the Web, and they are tired of waiting for Internet companies and content owners to make it happen.

But such an entertainment nirvana already exists — at least for owners of a silver and black gadget called the Slingbox.

Why Sling Box was created? The basic need covered by the SlingBox was the ability to watch your favourite content anywhere i.e watching the NFL/NHL finals when abroad, outside of your home or in another country. And I knew some Americans living in Singapore using Sling Boxes of friends in the US to watch their favorite sports events.

While on twitter…

I started using twitter recently and I found that sometimes there are overflows…

Does Gen X exist only because of Gen Y?

Reading Ryan Healy’s post on ”A Message to Gen X” at Employee Evolution:

“Most of the questions I get from Human Resources and Recruiting professionals about Generation Y are the same. They are all about why this generation expects to get so much so fast, why we feel entitled to flexibility, why we think we deserve high pay immediately, and so forth. The thing that surprises me every time is that it’s not the Baby Boomers who are so upset with Gen Y, it’s the Gen Xers. The more I pay attention, the more obvious it is that it’s the Gen Xers who think we’re just lazy, entitled Millennials.

The problem is that Generation X did not get what they asked for, and Generation Y is seemingly being catered to like we are owed something.”

From Ryan’s article, Gen Y is better positioned to take the reigns from the Boomers than Gen X because of the following factors: 1) better demographics, 2) better use of technology, and 3) better teamwork.

I will add 2 more factors 4) Globalization awareness, 5) Diversity advocates.

April Video Web Site ranking is out…Hulu up 7.1%

Not surprisingly Youtube has difficulties to increase its base due to a  lack of official and good quality content…

Mobile Marketing and Video

I came accross this great article about Mobile Video. It is from Dave Sloan marketing Director of Avot media.

He gives 5 ways where video is critical for mobile:

1. Watching and sharing a video from a mobile web site

2. Sharing video via social networks

3. Sharing video from desktop to mobile

4.Viewing live videos from a mobile web site

5.Viewing video content in a mobile application

Indeed, on point 2, more & more buzz videos are coming from friends post on social network. One of your friend posts a video that you want to share with your other friends then you just post it on your FB wall…and if the video is good the buzz starts!

On Hulu moving to Cellphones, Driving mobile video usage

Hulu has done well as a browser-based video destination. In march 2009, it reached he third position in video internet website with 2.6% market share. (which is good but still really far behind Youtube, 40% market share). With Newscorp and NBC Universal as shareholders, Hulu is a promising start-up. Hulu aims to provide free and legal content sponsored by advertising to users. More recently, Disney just joined the investors enabling TV series like “Lost” or “Desperate Housewives” from ABC available on the network.

So, it’s not surprising to hear that Hulu is headed to cell phones. An anonymous mobile industry executive says the video service will soon appear on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, according to Business Insider.

Mobile SEO

A good visibility on where Mobile SEO is. How to attract traffic now that a brands has its own mobile internet website / mobile applications. You’ve probably heard many “experts” advising you to optimize your site for mobile phones, or to create a “mobile” version of your site and optimize that for “mobile search.” The process has already been defined as “mobile SEO”, and there are already many SEO companies making money by “creating mobile sites” and doing “mobile SEO.”

SEO for Mobile by visibility mobile

View more presentations from Bena Roberts.

As we can see it is still the beginning of SEO for mobile site! Where to go, which platform to use, banners vs referencing…or web to mobile system.

To continue on this subject few links, this young french blogger just hired by gameloft to develop their mobile seo and of course the creators of this presentation Visibility mobile blog

New Media In China by Benjamin Joffe

Another interesting presentation by Benjamin Joffe from +8*

Nokia sells its Mobile Broadcast unit to…Wipro

An earthquake in the Mobile TV broadcasting happened today:

Nokia confirmed to Reuters today that it has sold its enterprise-focused mobile TV unit to India-based Wipro. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Although mobile TV has struggled to take off, the sale of the unit does not necessarily mean that the world’s largest handset-maker has become uninterested in the sector. A Nokia spokesperson told Reuters: “We wanted to focus on the consumer side of things, the mobile TV client in the devices, rather than on the business-to-business side.” The Mobile Broadcast Solutions unit had about 40 employees was more focused on the back-end. It created software and hardware which enabled the mobile TV technology on the phone to search for and access a broadcasting network.

To me, this move means:

• end of the battle for mobile TV broadcasting from an handset perspective
  
• the rising of mobile (web) TV i.e mainly through 3G, wifi
• an open space for broadcasting TV to mobile with ATSC M/H, DVB-T/H; ISDB-T/M; DVB-SH; CMMB…
• maybe the end of mediFLO or the sell of FLO division of QUALCOMM to another indian IT supplier…

I do not get why WiPRO would be interested in that division…unless they only looking at getting skills in Broadcasting in general?

Zapping April 19th

Japanese don’t like (or hate) the iPhone…softbank offers the phone for free in its plan – 1 Billion app (soon to be) downloaded – the battle between Larry King vs Aston Kutcher (Demi’s boyfriend) on the most followed on twitter…Nico we are still waiting for your twiller you may now be able to monetize it with tipjoy – nokia profits down of 90% – for the fan…we are still waiting Maria Sharapova to announce an Android Sony Ericsson phone!