Aereo is a company that delivers free broadcast channels via the Internet for $12 per month, allowing customers to watch networks on any Internet-connected device. It even bundles in some cloud DVR functionality. Broadcasters hate it, as I would imagine so do cable companies. Since going live with the service, Aereo has been dealing with [...]
cutting the cord
Great profile of Netflix in GQ by Nancy Haas: “What if you could radically alter the way stories get told?” asks Ted Sarandos. “What if the way people wanted to consume content actually changed what you could make?” Rhetorical questions, perhaps, but the kind of things Netflix’s chief content officer, its point man in Hollywood, [...]
First, YouTube is working with Netflix to develop an open protocol known as DIAL that will be an alternative to Apple’s AirPlay. The protocol will enable second screen apps on mobile devices to discover DIAL-ready first-screen devices, aka TVs connected to the Internet, in the same network and launch apps on them. The effort is [...]
The notion of cutting the cable cord isn’t necessarily one of not wanting to watch or pay for television — it’s about not wanting to pay for both cable and internet. Cable cutters, of which I consider myself one for the past five years, really just want to have their television viewing experience delivered through [...]
If you don’t watch sports you shouldn’t pay for cable television. An interesting corollary is that even if you’re not watching shows like ‘Mad Men’ or ‘Breaking Bad’ (it stands to reason many of you are not), you are subsidizing those shows and networks and raising the overall quality of television. Networks have effectively entered [...]
It’s the dirty little secret of cable companies. The sad thing is, for the most part, there are ways to get around it depending on how many sporting events you actually care to watch. The big ones, including the NFL, are typically broadcast for free on the networks.
Perhaps Apple’s greatest magic trick, if you will, is that for the past decade they’ve made culture-altering innovation seems positively easy. That innovation is actually really difficult by large companies should be the main takeaway from Kurt Eichenwald’s deep-dive into the Steve Ballmer-era at Microsoft, writes Matt Yglesias at Slate. For example, Eichenwald notes: Years [...]
The discussion of TV futurism often revolves around technology delivery methods that allows consumers to watch shows on their own schedule. However, one of the other aspects to this trend, and I’d argue more important one, is the reason people are cutting the cable cord and primarily watching TV on Hulu or Netflix has to [...]
Farhad Manjoo makes the interesting observation that Microsoft’s Xbox is already ahead of the curve when it comes to bringing television into the Internet-era. Over the last few months, Microsoft has turned its video-game console into your TV’s best friend. Late last year, the company revamped the Xbox’s interface, adding a wonderful voice-search feature through [...]
