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Sometimes I have to go with the tangent and see where it leads.  Every now and then, you have to go outside your range and push the boundaries.  Today, I’m off topic and off the cuff.  Consider that fair warning.

I grew up in a family of gadget-fiends.   If it had lights or buttons and required some form of power, chances are someone in the house lusted for it.  Today, I still like my tech-toys.  Gadget tech-toy websites like Engadget or Gizmodo remain a guilty pleasure but I like to think I’ve grown up some too (yes, some might argue that point).   Today, my pallet of interests is wider.  I build furniture with a style that borrows more from 100 years ago then 100 years from now.  I appreciate the new and the old (which I do recognize probably goes with not being so new myself anymore.)  I like originality.  I like things that have some battle scars just as much as things so futuristic that I can barely identify them.  My most recent find is a product that shares the DNA of both.  It’s a computer, but not like many others.

When two worlds collide the results can be breathtaking.  The resulting mutt can also be downright scary.  When the furniture maker’s art collided with computing in the Frankenstein labs of Canadian company Suissa Computers the result is striking.  The wood cased computers won’t suit every taste (not sure all the models suit mine) and they definitely won’t suit every budget.   The limited edition models are expensive.  They run at prices upwards of 2-4 times comparable components in an assembly line box.  Still, these products are a welcome retreat from the I-wanna-be-Bang-and-Olufsen-or-copy-Apple approach to product design that seems stamped on nearly every new gadget. 

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I love my iPod and other tech toys. I’m all for über-cool modern stylings but it’s nice to see a product with a little life to it.  In a world of increasingly A or B, organic vs. mass produced, form vs. function, it’s intriguing to see a marriage of different extremes. 

I’m of the school of thought that: simply because something is new or cutting edge, it doesn’t have to look that way.  Click to Read More

Spider-man 3, one of the most highly anticipated, and promoted, movies of the year opens in theaters today.   In a year of very-big-budget sequels,  Spidey may prove to be the costliest of them all.  Variety has reported production costs topped out around $260m before marketing and promotion.  Rumors have speculated that those numbers are sanitized and the actual cost broke the $300m barrier (making Spidey Part-3 the most expensive movie of all time – even with inflation adjustments).

Sony doesn’t have much reason to worry.  the first two movies took in more than $1.6b at the box office (see article from March for more info here).  That sum added to tremendous revenue from DVD sales, rentals and merchandising, not to mention gaming (Spider-man 3 games are due for several platforms) – Sony will probably see a solid return on investment, including marketing expenses, of even around $500m.

For Sony Pictures, Director Sam Raimi, Toby Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and the rest of the cast, this weekend will be a big indicator of how their work will be received.  While unlike its predecessor (Spider-man 2), this installment won’t show the skill of  a Pulitzer prize winning writer in its script, it does have the able assistance of a two-time academy award winning scriptwriter helping to guide it.  Ultimately, as Steven Spielberg is attributed to have said  “The important question is not whether a movie is worth $20m but whether it’s worth $10.”  I’d bet on a weekend gross between $75m and $110m. 

For the special effects team behind the movie-  the movie is already a hit based on the simple fact that it’s made it to the theaters.  One of the villains in the film, Sandman, relies tremendously on high level CG animation.  The character took a team of 30 f/x specialists two years to render and complete. Click to Read More

The humorist Erma Bombeck once said “You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren’t dying. They’re merging into big conglomerates.”

Looking at some of the biggest corporate acquisitions completed (or in the works) so far this year –, and the power of a few families in those transactions (especially those holding alternate classes of  shares with special voting rights ) – her sentiment may have been more accurate than she intended.

First there was Tribune Co., the countries 3rd largest newspaper company.    It sold to Sam Zell but only after the Chandler family, whose trusts controlled more than 20% of the stock, initiated a strategic review and pushed for its sale.

Now there are two more multi billion dollar sales in discussion, or on the grapevine, where a single family will play a major role:

1.  The Offer:

Today, the Wall Street Journal reported News Corp (Fox, MySpace etc) made a friendly offer of approximately $5billion to acquire Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Barrons, MarketWatch and owner of  other financial-information services.  The offer constituted a 67% premium over market value (the stock jumped more than 50% to $56.20 a share. 

The deal, even at a premium, could be a valuable addition to News Corps product portfolio. Based on 2006 revenue, the addition would increase News Corp. newspaper and magazine revenue by a $1b/yr  to over $6b (approximately 20% gain).  The Marketwatch property would also provide another news channel to be added to the new MySpace news offerings.  Given the troubled state of the publishing industry, one has to believe that Rupert Murdoch and his team at News Corp see significant value both in combining Dow Jones business news with Fox TV news properties, and also in the online components of the deal (both those already online, and those that could be).

The Family behind the Scenes:  

The Bancroft family holds 24.7% of the outstanding shares of Dow Jones. The voting rights of those shares give them control 64.2% of the company.  So far, the family has rebuffed the offer.  That may be because they aren’t’ interested in selling but that is unlikely. Since 1986 the family has reduced it’s holdings by more than 50%.   More likely is the theory that the rejection is gamesmanship to further drive the price. Click to Read More

As part of an ongoing effort to get lean and streamline its business ventures, Blockbuster Inc., the leading movie rental chain, sold its UK game retail unit, Game Station, to the British-based Game Group plc for $150m in cash. In a statement, Blockbuster CEO John Antioco said the sale "underscores our intent to focus on our Blockbuster-branded assets in North America in support of our goal to grow our overall share of the video rental market, both in-store and online."  This announcement follows several other similar divestitures.  In 2006, Blockbuster sold its Movie Trading Co. locations and Movie Brands Inc. subsidiary, and sold its Taiwan subsidiary. Blockbuster has also sold its U.S.-based Rhino Video Games.  While much of the sale’s proceeds are earmarked to pay down debt, there is little doubt the company wants more free cash flow available for the heavy toll of marketing expenses it’s been taking in its all-out war with Netflix.

Last week IPTV company Joost announced it had signed up 32 companies including Coca-Cola, Nike, Purina, HP, Intel, Taco Bell, Lions Gate and others to advertise on their soon to be released service.  Today,  Joost announced its commercial launch.  

Though the service is proclaimed to be widely available, access is limited to people who receive an invitation from friends and affiliates (similar to what was done with Gmail, though Google called that offering a beta test).  That marketing tactic is a little risky.  On the one hand, it will allow the company some measure of controlled growth and  protect against initial traffic “bursts” that could theoretical impair their  offering.  The marketing gimcick may also create an artificial sense of exclusivity and community.  On the other hand, the tactic could alienate potential users and impair growth.

Joost, which was previously called The Venice Project (prior article can be found here), promises more than 150 channels of broadcast quality programming served on an IPTV peer to peer platform that is ad-supported.   Click to Read More

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting Sony launched its own video sharing site in Japan on Friday.   The site, which is called eyeVio (meaning “one’s viewpoint”) is planned as a social environment for sharing user-generated content.

The site is something of a test-case for Sony.  It has functionality similar to YouTube, but more importantly for Sony (as the Sony graphic, which can be enlarged on a new page with a mouseclick, tries to indicate), it is designed to allow more seamless integration with Sony video devices (PSP’s, Camcorders etc), and may even allow integrated copyright monitoring or protection.   Under a similar guise of copyright protection, Sony may be offering the services to companies looking for a public outlet for some of their productions.

No advertising partners are currently signed up for the service.

The integration to Sony’s consumer products is a unique twist. Sony has shown in the past, that  it is willing to invest in a loss leader if it will drive product sales .  As investments go, this one is probably so trivial that it makes sense. (Recent gambles on the PS3 described here may not have been as shrewd)

If successful in Japan, an expanded version eyeVio may be rolled out in Europe or stateside.

At the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, Sun Microsystems today unveiled a platform for offering digital video services through phone or cable lines.  The Service, called the Sun Streaming System was the brainchild and project of Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim.   Bechtolsheim began its development at a startup he was running called Kealia which was bought by Sun in 2004.  Bechtolsheim stayed on at Sun (which he had left in 1995) to continue working on the project. 

One of the challenges the Sun System is intended to address is scalability and the economics of IPTV systems which are typically expensive. A big reason for that is that there is zero-tolerance for packet (data) loss with streaming. To avoid latency spikes and other issues, most delivery platforms rely on distributed small-scale servers and lots of disk-based storage. Sun’s Streaming Switch architecture (which is further described in a white paper found here) is designed to allow the use of more powerful, centralized servers.

Sun is marketing the system for 5 areas:

• Personalized Television Services over IP
• Targeted Advertising
• Time-shifted television (nPVR)
• Video On Demand
• Broadcast Television over IP

With heavy hopes and big dreams married to improvements in video streaming technologies and platforms, Sun is hoping (as are some potential telecom and cable companies, and IPTV startups) that the system will bring some much desired improvements.  If they do, it could even make Sun relevant again.