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.

Sling Box’s strength lies on its ability of letting users watch the content “they paid for” anywhere: concept of “place-shifting” or “slinging”.  This product was designed from a Broadcast industry perspective.The slingbox is connected to your cable box and to the Internet. The web was used as a network of pipes.

Then, Sling Media developed along the years, a set of services enabling users:

• to have multiple sreens in-house – ubiquitous
• to record, store and stream content – anytime
• to watch their content on multiple devices PC, TV, Mobile – anydevices

For information, Sling was acquired in 2007 by EchoStar, the satellite TV firm that then split into two public companies: the consumer TV business Dish Networks, and the Echostar Corporation, which owns Sling.

EchoStar’s plan looks pretty amibitious. At this moment, Cable and Sat Operators are struggling to keep their existing revenue, in some cases are losing money due to restructuration and increasing competition vs the Internet. Operators are seeking ways to broadcast their content online to their “right”-owned users.

But don’t we already sling? Most people I know do sling…however they do not have a slingbox.  I am able to watch all of my favourite shows on the web, whether if I pay for it or not. And I am able to watch these shows on my TV thanks to my VGA/RCA cable.

What I lack of, though, is an easy interface able to give me access to an online video store and play it on any of my device. And that’s what Sling Media created a few months ago.

There is a trend from content provider through Hulu.com (their newly desktop player), Online Retailer (Fnac.com in Spain, France), Manufacturers (Apple, to a lesser extent Archos), TV Operators (Orange, BskyB, DirectTV) and Broadcaster to create an online video store able to stream to the web and to the TV thanks to a type of hardware. And tomorrow to even more devices: mids, pmps, netbooks…

A tremendous shift is happening in our industry. Content providers not only offer a service of TV but are more and more trying to provide an experience of entertainment. Thus implying converged services.