First Boxee. And now Google?
These are exciting times for anybody dying to break free from their provider’s cable captivity. If my wife was not a die-hard tennis fan I would have switched to internet-only TV. Consequently we are smack in the middle of the bell curve. I pretty much use Boxee exclusively on my MacBook and will sometimes sync to an AppleTV. But I can’t wait to build my own home theater on a netbook and convince my wife that we could cut the cord once and for all.
With Google/Intel/Sony’s entry such transformations could be significantly accelerated. The Boxee experience has already raised the quality of internet media channels easily available on the big screen at home. So Google/Intel/Sony’s launch is happening at an excellent time. The question remains: how quickly will the incumbent media providers (cable and telcos) turn into plumbing for bits? I think the answer is complicated because it depends on a couple of factors:
the availability of good quality broadband: yes, broadband alone will not suffice. You need decent quality of service to support large-scale delivery of media over data connections
the incumbents’ revenue profiles: the largest sources of revenue for incumbents are also the largest consumers of internet bandwidth and hence best positioned to take advantage of internet-delivered media. But the same affluent consumers will continue to seek the deterministic quality and convenience advantage of the incumbents until the internet plays catch up.
These two reasons make me think that the shift will not be quick and will likely require significant shifts such as large content providers cutting deals with the internet-delivery enablers versus incumbent providers. Or consolidation of incumbent providers by the enablers who will then split out the pure plumbing business. Or incumbents morphing into enablers or perhaps even into content providers: could this be the path that Comcast gets on with its recent purchase of NBC? Will they ultimately choose to exit the plumbing business ala Verizon and its once-upon-a-time-cashcow landline business? Or is the purchase simply a defensive move to stave being pushed into pure plumbing?
This is going to be very interesting to follow: the continuation of the story that started when the internet became the marketplace and ecosystem for music. Now instead of the record distribution companies being the middle-man, it is the incumbent providers and the new kids on the block are the enablers versus Napster, Kazaa and their surviving descendant {Lime/Frost}wire and the legit guys, Apple and Amazon.
