Obsoleting obsolescence: One of the holy grails for parsimonious gadget lovers is a device that can be perennially upgraded - instead of buying a new one, just swap out the software. Joshua Martin, an analyst at Yankee Group in Boston, thinks the consumer electronics industry may finally be waking up to the importance of this, citing Microsoft's plan to overhaul the software interface of its Xbox 360 game console.
The industry is recognizing the need for an upgrade path to keep older devices relevant. There was a time that you needed a new iPod every year. Now the devices are small enough, store enough, offer ample features, and have their capabilities upgraded often enough that keeping a device longer is not unreasonable. The emergence of upgradeable software presents a number of possibilities that consumer electronics manufacturers must consider: selling less hardware, becoming part of a new revenue stream, and requiring CE companies to become software experts.
Ultimately, the lesson to be garnered from the change is that the experience matters most and the device is becoming secondary. blogs.yankeegroup.com
YouTube slippage: Venture capitalist David Beisel pulled apart some recent data hinting that YouTube's dominant market share of online video-viewing may be waning.
I believe we're entering a second phase of the online video space in which the discovery mechanisms for (semi-)professional content, coupled with the increase of professional content available online in a distributed fashion, will facilitate a willingness of users to venture beyond YouTube to consume video across the net. But it won't happen overnight. Especially when I hear that the dirty little secret from many independent video producers who maintain their own destination sites is that an overwhelming number of their views come via YouTube and not on their own distribution. While Google's universal search in theory should facilitate this transition, given that in this case Google owns the both content (YouTube) and the discovery mechanisms (Google search), their incentive to push the latter is in conflict with their other own interest. Herein lies the problem - how do you find good video without going to YouTube?
This open question has inhibited the shift in video consumption past its original portal through to the distributed net - where the rest of web content consumption occurs. Perhaps the results of the past two ComScore surveys have signaled a change in consumers habits in which they're finding video content wherever they just happen to be surfing anyway. The best (or at least a better) discovery mechanism will come in time, perhaps via a startup which eclipses Google while it's conflicted . . . but regardless, eventually measuring "video sites traffic" will be redundant given that video will proliferate to all corners of the web on a predominant number of pages.
There's a good chance we'll look back at this summer then and point to it as when it all really began to happen.
genuinevc.com
Embracing dissimilarity: Are Americans sorting themselves into homogeneous bins? Michael Feinstein, managing director of the Waltham investment firm Sempre Management, posted some reflections on an NPR interview that featured the author of a new book called "The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart."
When I think about entrepreneurship, I always associate it with new ideas, high energy, and commitment. This is exactly what you get with new immigrants who come to the U.S. to make their lives better. My grandparents were immigrants, and my paternal grandfather was an entrepreneur. He built up a pretty big wholesale and retail grocery business after coming to the country with very little. While there is nothing stopping native-born Americans from being just as entrepreneurial, our privileged upbringing probably removes some of the inner hunger that an immigrant who has to overcome large obstacles probably has.
But, even more important than making sure we continue to have a steady stream of immigrants coming into the U.S. with new ideas and new energy, we all need to continue to expose ourselves to new people and new ideas to avoid complacency. We tend to settle into our comfort zones where life is predictable and less challenging. That's a recipe for stagnation. Instead, we need to force ourselves to meet new people, from different backgrounds, and embrace new ideas.
thefeinline.com
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