Google Wave Take Application Development Online
Google is promoting its forthcoming real-time collaborative development tool Wave with an App Store similar to what iPhone has. It’s basically an alternative to the free open source culture on the internet where online users don’t pay. With Google Wave, developers can use the collaborative tools online and market these with Google taking a revenue share.
The recent Google Technology User Group meeting in the UK had Google’s Lars Rasmussen and Stephanie Hannon present Google Wave which is now in beta test stage with about 600,000 developers testing the platform worldwide. No one is certain if the idea will sail but it has the potential to become a useful tool for games and online news reporting.
Will It Be Netflix or Amazon Video?
With video on demand gaining ground, you now have two business models emerging. There’s Netflix offering instant and unlimited access to a database of older movies and TV shows for a fix $8 monthly fee. Then there’s Amazon Video offering $2 to $3 for every access to recent movies.
I came across a recent study conducted by a New York based research firm The Catalyst Group that concluded either provider can have a good following all dependent on the film-watching habits of the research respondents. But regardless of the choice, the conclusion is that people prefer to watch films on their beloved TV and not on the PC.
So for that, the Netflix models seems closer to having the edge as most of its video library can be watched over the TiVo set-top box or wait for the DVD to be delivered to you. But if Amazon can lower it price per movie, perhaps it can generate a good enough following.
Electronic Arts Buys Social Gaming Upstart Playfish
Video game company EA just paid $275 million in cash and $25 million in stocks to acquire Playfish, a maker of social networking games that made it bid as a popular online sport.
The sale made clear that online gaming that makes money from the selling virtual goods and making online advertisers happy is fast becoming a lucrative online commercial activity.
It used to be that you pay first before playing the online game. Now you play and pay for virtual good offered. Barry Cottle, GM for EA Interactive says, “The Traditional model of pay and play is morphing into play and pay.”
Google Out to Conquer SatNav with the New Android 2.0
That may be a little ambitious for a search engine, but it looks like Google has its sights on the SatNav market when it enhanced and released its 2nd full OS edition of the Android designed for the cellphone. Apart from being faster with better synchronization features, Android 2.0 has turn-by-turn navigation features integrated in it.
I don’t know if SatNav makers like TomTom or Garmin are worried, but it looks like cellphones are not content gobbling mp3 markets, PDA, camera, vidcam and game console markets. Now, it looks like SatNav makers will soon have a new competition from cellphones offering full GPS-based turn-by-turn features.
What’s In Store for the Post-DVD Era?
It's online video streaming. Last month, electronic retailer BestBuy entered into a deal with Netflix to allow streaming the latter’s movie library to it Insignia-branded Blu-Ray players. Earlier, Blockbuster went into partnership with Sonic Solutions that would enable streaming movie service to Blockbuster’s customers using electronic devices like TiVo DVRs, Samsung’s HD TVs and Blue-Ray players. BestBuy likewise partnered with Sonic to deliver newly released DVD content streamed to consumers.
The era for the boxed DVD is nearing its end. With the internet and broadband, movies can be sourced online. All these companies realize that this early, they need to get a good handle as they transition to the post-DVD era. According to California based Sonic Solutions whose authoring tools are used by studios to make DVDs, the movie industry is taking the first steps away from discs to electronic distribution direct to consumers.
Downloading HD Movies – The Next Home Video Revolution?
Movie enthusiasts have long harnessed the internet and broadband connections to enjoy high definition movies on their LCD monitors, large or small. Even Blu-ray owners have been known to download mkv files containing compressed 1080p resolution video sourced from Blu-ray rips. And they’re all for free. It makes you wonder where those video pirates earn uploading ripped movies in torrent sites.
But this has got to give movie makers a hint of what the market wants and its behaviors as far as sourcing HD home video. Downloading seems to be the most popular mode of acquiring HD content. While those Blu-ray discs are handsomely packaged with nifty extras like behind the scenes outtakes, the majority of the market just wants to see the movie in glorious HD and at the earliest time. It’s amazing how torrent sites can deliver them to the homes weeks earlier than the studios can release them. The studios must be missing something.