Thanks, Banksy

As the most loyal of my readers know, I do not own a tv.  I don’t have a television screen hanging on a vacant wall in my apartment like nearly everyone else I know.  Instead I have some 20×200 art and a picture of mayor Bloomberg.  You think I’m joking, but I’m not.

How do I work in media and not own a tv?  Well, first, I read a lot. Turns out people have developed this bizarre habit of post blogging and tweeting about almost everything that happens and even things that are to happen.  A good Google Reader obviates the need for television, magazines or newspapers.  Even my beloved New Yorker.  Second, in addition to Cliff Note-esque transcriptions of everything that happens, almost everything is also available streaming online.  YouTube has a frightening amount of content uploaded each day and sites like Hulu.com and Netflix.com are finding more and more visitors stopping by per day. But, this isn’t news.

The news is that Amazon has decided to throw its hat in the ring. A couple weeks ago, Amazon announced that Video On Demand was free for Amazon Prime users.

Much like the Google Reader, an Amazon Prime account is a necessary indulgence.  I’ve written about it before, but Prime enables free two-day shipping and $3.99 overnight shipping on any item shipped by Amazon (though not a third party).  Doesn’t sound that great?  What about if you remember that due to economies of scales and savvy negotiating Amazon offers just about the lowest rate on just about everything?  Do you really want to walk THREE BLOCKS to CVS to buy a new toothbrush?  No, you want to click a button and have it arrive in the mail in two days and save mucho dinero.

Now you can also save $8 a month by cancelling your Netflix subscription in favor of an Amazon Prime account. That’s right, Amazon is taking on the giant directly. This is an interesting business move for a couple of reasons:

• This is a great way to sell Prime accounts.  The $70 a year doesn’t seem so bad when you realize how much you get for it: free shipping and free streaming videos.  The price point is similar to that of Netflix as well.  It makes the choice pretty easy.
• Consumers seem to be consolidating their lives.  In the same way, an internet user doesn’t need to leave Facebook to do anything anymore (games, shopping, news, socializing), they can do it all at Amazon.  Consumers don’t need to be bothered by typing in another URL.  AND Amazon kindly saves its users credit card and shipping information so users can make all necessary transactions on Amazon.

I am interested to see how Netflix et al. fare with this new player in the game and how Amazon’s Prime memberships and revenue grows.

As my friends know well, I really enjoy watching TV/movies on my computer.  In a Tivo world, I have lost my patience with commercials and am unwilling to center my life around the TV schedule.  Sites like Hulu or Megavideo have made my TV viewing experience more pleasant.  However, I am still subject to poor quality streams or a lack of breadth of options.

Boxee is a program, recently updated to alpha from beta, that is trying to change the way we watch media.  It is a program downloadable from boxee.tv (an appropriately chosen host) that runs on your computer and you can hook it up to your TV so in the off chance that you actually have friends who want to watch the Biggest Loser with you, you won’t have to huddle around the computer.

This program acts similarly to Tivo in that you run all your media viewing through this application.  No more opening a different window to search YouTube or go to Hulu.  It’s userface is closer to that of the iPhone, with different levels organized by type, but with a standard home screen.  It also aggregated all your current media outlets onto one platforms; that means YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon or any other outlet.  However, those products protected by DMR, like iTunes are not yet available.

You might not have heard of Boxee yet, but you will.  At this year’s CES, Boxee took home four awards, Best of CES: Popular Science Products of the Future.  Just like phone providers are suffering due to Skype and Google Voice, traditional cable and satellite providers are suffering from the rise in popularity of media through the internet.  But I ask, would you go back to using calling cards/paying egregiously high rates to all abroad? Never.  So why would you shell high monthly fees to providers that don’t even meet your needs?

Warning: Boxee recently announced that they will start charging for content.  They say this will entice producers of media to keep creating and the fee for users would be nominal.

I am taking this as a sign that Boxee is growing up.  As one of the comments on the Boxee blog wonders, when is the IPO and how can we buy stock?

Check out this video to see an overview (don’t you want to be that attractive couple watching TV?)

We all can agree that Hulu is an awesome website that makes entertainment easier.  Hulu.com posts popular TV shows (and movies) from major networks for viewers to stream.  While each network has its own site, Hulu aggregates the shows so they are all available in the same place.  A GE/News Corp/Disney brainchild, the website launched in March of 2008.  Now it has in excess of 8.6 million unique visitors per month (via Compete.com).

Bottom line, Hulu has changed the way we watch TV.  I don’t even own a TV, though I watch a fair amount.  Even when I go home, there’s no cable — my father cut it last year because no one was watching it.  Thus, my computer doubles as a TV.  I watch a lot of Hulu, it has a good selection of shows and has high quality streaming. Sometimes I opt for sites like TVShack.net for my HBO and Showtime fixes.

With the advent of Tivo and DVR, advertisers are seeing smaller returns on their investments.  Viewers are fast-forwarding through commercials!  The way Hulu works is by forcing the viewer to watch a short 30-second ad clip throughout an episode — which comes out to about 2 minutes of commercials.  However, viewers clearly don’t mind because they continue to watch.  Commercials can also be aimed at certain people based on the show, an added plus for advertisers.

Given Hulu’s popularity, other similar services are leaking out of the woodwork, most recently: FreeAllMusic.com, a website that will allow users to download a song after watching a short ad.  The Times did a nice piece (Thanks, Aaron) about the new service, but I’m not buying it (haha, get it?).

The Times article spent more time comparing it to Hulu, which suggests that this site is just a knock off.  And given that there are rumors that Hulu will turn into a subscription service, Hulu’s model may not even be working that well.  Downloading = ownership, I bet it will have to be a pretty long commercial to be worth the $0.99 I am paying on iTunes.

To be current, FreeAllMusic.com is going to update your Twitter feeds and Facebook statuses with your activity, if you choose to opt in.  However, that will be making its users into advertisers.  This might make sense for a few who want their peers to recognize them as progressive and ahead of the curve (or those who don’t understand TMI boundaries). Personally it would just make me feel cheap and let the world know exactly how much Taylor Swift I listen to.

Let’s also talk about the name of this website, I have a couple qualms: are we freeing music?  Like a command: “Let music be free”?  Or was Allourmusicisfreeifyouwatchanad.com taken?  Or is it ‘Free, with respect to all music’?  Hulu works because it’s its own word, memorable and distinctive — one of the first rules of branding.

Okay, now I am ranting.  The idea is there and could catch on.  I’m just not confident in the execution.  It seems that neither is the website; initially users can only download 20 songs a month….

What do you think?