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Netflix Streaming Poised to Kill Netflix Shipping

Monday, May 16th, 2011

For the first time ever, Netflix is anticipating shipping out less DVDs than the last quarter. This has never happened before, and is not a sign of stagnation. Rather, it is a sign of alternate growth. Because just as Netflix approaches the shipment of its 3 billionth disc, they are also the industry leader in the online streaming of movies and TV shows over the Internet.

And with gigabit-per-second speeds predicted to reach the home over the next decade, the physical disk is going to be dead. But, it looks like Netflix is going to not only be the last major player in the old world. But be the future’s big player as well.

The king is dead. Long live the king.

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E-Mail Rising, Text Falling. What Year is This?

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

Remember all the notices that e-mail was going away? More and more prominent techies kept saying it. Kids aren’t using it. They’re texting.

Well, guess what? Market research company MarketTools claims that just the opposite is happening. Email is rising. Texts are falling. Why? Well, one theory is that e-mail is being used like texts now anyway. They’re pushed to your phone the second they’re sent. Plus, you can manage your e-mail on your desktop. Texts are harder to manage, thread, send to multiple users and more.

It does need to be pointed out that this survey only included tech professionals and students 18 years and older. So, maybe this study is simply ignoring the group that’s going to change everything.

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Designing Your Website for Speed

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

We’re a lot less patient than we were in 1994. When we would patiently wait 2 hours to download a large word document. Those days are over. Our patience is up. And if you don’t want your Web visitors bailing on you, it’s essential that your page loading speed is seamless.

In fact, 40% of site visitors abandon their visit if the page design takes more than just 3 seconds to load. That’s a quarter of your audience that you can’t afford to lose.

So, optimize your site design graphics for the Web (make them smaller). And cool it on the flash (it’s not great for mobile anyway).

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Google News Aggregating Like Google Does Best

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

It’s fun when Google sticks to online information aggregation. That’s their bread and butter. That’s what they’re best at. And that’s what could cause them to be the most important news portal in the future.

Google is looking to make Google News even more personalized. This means helping Google understand the kinds of stories you’re interested in. Telling them when they’re not. So, you get the news stories that matter most to you, as they happen. From news providers around the world, including hyper-local news that’s happening in your own hometown.

It’s one of those systems that works better the more you work it. So, just head on over to Google News, and take a look for yourself.

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Netflix Influencing Higher Education

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Netflix recommends movies based on how much previous similar renters liked them. It’s a simple concept in theory. And one that university’s across the country are looking to implement to help students pick their courses.

These course recommendation systems consider major, remaining requirements, past academic performance and how similar students fared in that class. The idea is that this recommendation system will help students pick courses they will be able to fare more successfully in.

Although, these systems don’t currently incorporate student’s subjective feedback regarding how they “liked” the course. And that’s the real Netflix. Because otherwise, faculty will be incentivized to grade easier so their courses get recommended more frequently. What this does is help students from taking advanced courses that look interesting before they’re academically ready for them. This is extremely useful. But, it’s not Netflix.

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Speed Sale Sites Bank on Loss Aversion

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

Behavioral psychologists have come across a fascinating understanding of the human mind. We have an extraordinary loss aversion. One that is significantly higher than our desire to gain. What does this mean? We value things we have way more than the item if not in our possession.

Gamblers have been using this strategy for years to try and figure out how this human irrationality influences betting lines in major sports games, and betting against them. Now, certain Speed Sale Websites are trying to take advantage of this understanding to improve their online sales.

How? They’re giving customers just seconds to decide on discounted items – or lose the price forever. An item comes on the screen and you have four seconds to decide whether you want to buy it. This might be the next eBay – with a competitive aspect that pushes online valuations higher than they should. It’s genius.

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Microsoft Users Adopt IE9 5 Times Faster Than IE8

Monday, April 11th, 2011

First to market is much more important than best to market.

There’s no better example of that than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. While tech snobs, programmers and MAC users, typically prefer Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Safari, in that order, Internet Explorer still holds a +50% share of the market. Why? Because they were there first.

And signs that they’re going to stick around for a while got even better based on the adoption rate of its new browser evolution, Internet Explorer 9. Getting great reviews, Ryan Gavin from Microsoft is now claiming that, “The adoption rate of IE9 is about five times higher then what we saw for Internet Explorer 8 in the same time frame.”

Great news for Microsoft. But, here’s something to think about. Many people download multiple browsers now. So a download to “see what the fuss is all about” isn’t necessarily “adoption.”

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Semantic Text Technology: Cliffs Notes for Cliffs Notes

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

Isn’t Web design already supposed to be about abbreviated content?

Regardless, as we become more and more busy, we’re looking for ways to save as much time as possible. And TopicMarks has developed a semantic text technology that essentially creates Cliffs Notes for Web content. The technology analyzes the text and is able to extract the most important information.

I don’t really understand how this can be as good as we all want it to be. And I watched Watson on Jeopardy. I get the power of computing these days. And that’s why I’m skeptical. Watson isn’t close to a human yet, in terms of speed or creative ability. And the latter is how Cliffs notes are made – understand the true essence of Website information, and reducing it to an abstract for easy digestability.

I can see how TopicMarks will assume that repeated words and phrases are more important. But if that’s its main strength, I don’t think we’re ready to start burning down libraries just yet.

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Gambling: The Reason Why Some Sports Keep Growing

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

It’s fun to hear the arguments about why baseball’s audience has shrunk while football’s has continued to grow. The pace of the game. The action. The violence.

Guess what? It’s the online gambling. Not just monetary. But, the competitive aspect of fantasy football.

After all, guess what sport just broke a new ESPN.com online gaming record? The NCAA March Madness tournament for entry brackets filled out. This tactic makes every game interesting. I don’t just care about my alma matter anymore. I have a vested interest in every single game that’s played. It’s what the NCAA has done. It’s what the NFL has done. Sure, there’s fantasy baseball. But it’s way harder. Takes way more time. And just isn’t as fun.

Can you imagine what an NCAA football bracket system would do for the sport if it were to end the Bowl system for one with playoffs?

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Netflix Goes Vertical Rolling Out Original Content

Friday, March 18th, 2011

When you think online vertical integration, do you think Netflix? You might want to start.

Netflix is looking to distribute their very own original TV series. And not just a made-for-TV Hallmark-quality special. We’re talking David Fincher and Kevin Spacey remaking “House of Cards”. This is premium cable-quality entertainment.

So, what does this mean? Well, that the television entertainment industry continues to change. And since less and less people are watching television shows in their regularly-scheduled slots, due to the proliferation of on-demand content services, this could work. If Netflix becomes not only the movie provider of choice, and the syndicated television content provider of choice, but crosses into original content, they’ll have it all. Plus, you won’t need a separate subscription to get it.

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