David LaPlante

Mobile ESPN Fumbles...Is Disney Next? Or will Apple's MVNO Get the Content? Plus: Why Cabela's Should Acquire the ESPN MVNO Assets.

 

The news of today in mobile is that ESPN is cutting it's Mobile ESPN MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) service. I'm sure this was a supervise to many, however, a long list of industry pundits have been on the Mobile ESPN deathwatch almost since its birth.

Many will drumbeat this as a "lost game", however, I think that this was a merely a First Quarter fumble and ESPN is still poised to win the mobile and wireless sports content game.

(What I do know is that a lot of bloggers -- including myself -- will use this as an opportunity to write some really bad sports cliches in their posts <grin>!)

A notice to the Mobile ESPN Web site today states:

"Thank you for your support of Mobile ESPN. We have been proud to provide fans like you the best wireless sports content experience.

We have, however, decided to change the direction of Mobile ESPN. As of December 31, 2006, Mobile ESPN will cease its wireless service...

...good news is the Mobile ESPN content you have come to enjoy and expect will soon be available through the service of another nationwide wireless provider."

Hmmm. So let's look at some scenarios moving forward that explain today's actions. Comment back what scenario you think is most likely, or add your own:

1. Disney/ESPN thinking: Let's cut all the branding, billing and MVNO overhead and pitch it back upstream to Sprint for an exclusive carrier-on-deck content deal.
2. Disney/ESPN thinking: Let's cut all the branding, billing and MVNO overhead and pitch it out to all the carriers for a long-term non-exclusive carrier-off-deck subscription fees and/or consumption "taxes".
3. Disney/ESPN/Apple thinking: Apple will have their "MVNO/i-phone" out in the next year...we'll scuttle Disney's MVNO and roll ESPN/Disney content in to an Apple MVNO exclusive. An iTunes/Disney/ESPN content conglomerate that only Elliot Spitzer could stop. After all, the only reason Dad will move the whole famdamily over to an Apple MVNO for the Disney iTunes is if there's "something in it for me". (Not that I would know <grin>!)

Anyway, one could easily get carried away with trying to "over-guess" this.

Bottom line is really simple: not enough subscribers. For this, however, there will be no simple answer. (Yes, one will be given, however, we know it ain't always simple to explain away these things.)

Was Sprint the wrong partner? This is doubtful, they were clearly the best network for pushing the 3G video content.

Was the phone selection too expensive or not age-demographic appropriate? Again, not clear. The phones were great, however, amid the Motorola Razr tsunami and a Windows Mobile 5.0 launch, the initially expensive Sanyo was a brand and a price that sports fans may have found too much to digest to switch carriers for.

My guess is it simply came down to the paradigm shift and timing of the content distribution. Should ESPN be available for fees and subscriptions to all major US carriers? Hell yes. Just as ESPN content is not exclusively restricted to just cable operators and not available to DirectTV satellite providers. And from a paradigm shift, we're still trying to piece together the social aspects of why MySpace -- with a clearly inferior user-interface and kludgy functionality -- blew the pants off of Friendster, Ryze, Tribe, Facebook, Xanga etc.

So does this spell disaster for the myriad of MVNO's out there today? Yes and no. Disney may be up the same creek. They're probably better off long-term focusing on making their content as "widely" distributed over as many carriers as possible than "exclusive" deals.

Cabela's MVNO Would Work

I've been joking around for at least three years now that Cabela's should startup an MVNO. My partners would be stoked just so I'd quit yammering about it. The social demographics of Cabela's customers are compelling and they have the distribution channels nailed. I would soooo love to be sitting in a London coffee shop at some trade show talking on an Advantage Camo cell phone. The stares from the London business elite alone would be worth a 30% premium price for the phone.

The Salt Lake City Cabela's store pulled in more visitors than the Mormon Temple in its first year. Cabela's is an Internet commerce, direct-mail catalogue, retail success story like no other right now:

• Cabela's is the nation's largest direct marketer
• Cabela's is the leading specialty retailer for
• hunting, fishing and camping (the nation's pastime)
• (more folks do these activities than get ESPN on cable, that's for sure)

Hunting, fishing and camping are social-oriented lifestyle brands that Cabela's can easily capitalize on, more than content like Disney, ESPN, or the Outdoor Channel for that matter.

Reno has promised our collective first-born sons (well at least their college education funds in my case <grin>) to get Cabela's to open a retail location here.

I can hope by the time it's open here they've acquired the ESPN MVNO assets and are offering cell phones in Wetland, Advatage and Scent-Lok! If you're from Cabela's and are reading this...give me a call. I've got three years of thought in to this one!

 
  Technorati : Apple, Cabela's, Disney, ESPN, ESPNMVNO, MVNO, Nevada, Reno, SLC, Salt Lake City, Sprint, carriers, marketing, mobile, mobileESPN, subscribers, wireless
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Nokia officially launches US-friendly E70 - Engadget Mobile

Since Nokia released the 6682 back in 2004, it's been my phone of choice. There's many a photo of me with this phone in my hand. Every 6682 I've owned is polished from spending hours in my hand.

While I've managed to break a 'couple, it's from living a very hard life. I carry my phone 24x7. It goes skiing. It goes fishing. Hunting. Drinking. To parties. In the mosh pit. It gets drinks spilled on it. It gets sweaty. Steamed up. Frozen. I drop it at least daily, if not more. I've thrown it at people. It keeps working...for the most part.

The 6682 is a text messaging machine. It's the most important piece of tech I own. It's how I stay in touch with most of my close relationships. I send more text messages a day than email. 160 characters. Short, sweet, and to the point.

And now the E70 has arrived in the US.

The new Nokia E70 is perhaps the most anticipated piece of tech for 2006 for me. I saw it at CES in January in Las Vegas and have been dying for it to arrive.

It's been officially released. I have one on order. (My last 6682 has a sticky #5.) I'll let y'all know what I think.

Link to Nokia officially launches US-friendly E70 - Engadget Mobile

tags: Nokia, 6682, E70, cell, phone

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2000 Miles, 2 weeks, 2 Kids and an iPod

Logan & Cody Sharing iPod
Originally uploaded by dave_laplante.

We just returned from a family vacation back to my hometown of Crested Butte, Colorado. With that vacation came about two weeks of being on the road. Two thousand miles in the car with two kids and one iPod to be exact.

We took no DVDs nor any DVD player. My Tablet PC laptop doesn't have a CD/DVD drive. We didn't watch one DVD the whole trip. Furthermore, we didn't go see Superman or Pirates. When the kids wanted a "media fix" (which was when they were settling down for bed around 9p or 10p) they snacked on iPod videos.

TV appears to be all but is dead in our house now. We have no cable TV. All content is coming on a DVD or from a computer now. And -- for the moment -- our kids are more than OK with this. The proof is an incident free vacation with no DVD, no TV and a lot of outdoors.

Kudos to Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender animation. It's an entertaining story for kids...and adults. Somehow it's managed to have broken their love-affair for Power Rangers and is fun to watch for parents. I'm actually anticipating the next episode!

Technorati : children, gadgets, generations, ipod, kids, parenting, video
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Flickr : children, gadgets, generations, ipod, kids, parenting, video

It’s a Matter of Perspective: Why the iPod Video Screen Size is Perfect for Viewing

So I’m sitting here on a flight to Atlanta and the baby boomer seated next to me has just spent 5 minutes – five futile minutes – lambasting me for buying a video iPod. I’m not sure why he felt so compelled to try and convince me that the iPod video screen is too small to be enjoyable.

So I had him hold up the iPod and compare it to the in-flight movie screen he’d been so entranced with watching for a perspetive comparison. I held up my cell phone for a perspective comparison as well and it became pretty clear that a 12 inch screen 10 feet away is much smaller than a 1.5” screen 12 inches from my nose.

It seems to me that viewing pleasure is about 90% content and 10% screen size. I repeat: People will watch compelling content on ANYTHING given circumstances where this is no other alternative. I’m sure someone will give me the math to break it down. Screen size really is irrelevant as compared to the content and the TRL (Time, Relevance & Location).

Content is still king. Always will be. Distribution is no longer the name of the game. I actually had my camera handy on this flight so I snapped a couple photos of my iPod with an in-flight screen in front of me. See for yourself. Final note: I’d rather watch South Park over CNN any day. Content is king, remember!?

CES Las Vegas: 150,000 Gadget Geeks!

LAS VEGAS NV -- Holy crap! This town is packed. Never seen so many people in Vegas. This place is stuffed to the gills with A LOT of gadget geeks. There’s gotta be at least 75,000 pairs of Levi Docker’s running around down here! So I actually never even made it on to the show floor to snap photos of my favorite toys. I was stuffed in meetings the whole time. Bummer. Maybe CTIA… Kenzer made it to the Diggnation live podcast tho’. He’s stoked. I missed that too…here I am in Gadget Heaven and I’m being responsible and going to meetings and networking rather than fiddlin’ with the tech. Oh the agony!

Free wireless phone calls from Xcelis

Use Cingular/AT&T? Check.

Got a second cel phone from Cingular/AT&T? Check.

Want to make free phones calls to anyone? Check.

From an article at RED HERRING:

To use the Parthenon service, customers must purchase a second, Bluetooth-enabled cell phone from their existing mobile carrier, to keep at home along with a “box” purchased from Xcelis. Using their free mobile-to-mobile minutes, subscribers call the second phone from their primary phone for free, and the Parthenon box routes the call to the customer’s landline or VoIP service. The caller will get a dial tone, and then can place a domestic call to anyone for free.

OGO Flap has Started!

Russell Beattie writes, "Three letters. OGO... I've got three other letters for it: POS. What dumb-ass brought this thing to market? As much as I love data services, voice is *still* the killer app. Hopefully I'll look back on this in a year and it'll be different, but right now a device like this without the ability to make phone calls? It's dumb."

My reply:

Voice IS still the killer app...at least in a broadly defined US market for mobile use today. Make no mistake about it, messaging is the killer app for narrow segments, like 14-25. Russell, you just ain't as hip as you used to be...it's called age. I know because I suffer from it too!

Just as Fax was (still is) a killer app. Just as e-mail was (still is) a killer app. IM, SMS and mobile e-mail are the apps for the messaging generation. And it's here, make no mistake about it.

Go hang out in the college campus library and watch the messaging fly. Talk to any business owner with a relatively unsecure WiFi network in close proximity to a high-school campus about their hijacked networks during lunch and homeroom.

The OGO is not a PDA. When you're 17, you don't need a PDA! You need to know inside of 30 seconds what girl/boy likes you, where the party is tonight, what your fellow pep club peers are wearing to the Sadie Hawkins dance, what's the square root of pi, and most importantly: what's the ETA on the tap for the keg! That's messaging.

The OGO is not a computer. Parents will kick their kids off the home computer, hand them an OGO and let them message their little hearts out knowing there's no unexpected bills and no unexpected porn surfing. (My 13-year-old nephew racked up a $65.00 messaging bill in July. He got grounded, needless to say.)

I'm not saying the OGO will be a huge success, but it has every propensity to succeed. And there will be at least two dozen other devices in the next 18 months that will make those of us over the age of 34 scratch our heads for a moment or two.

It's going to take some getting used to, but the limelight that business oriented tech-toys have enjoyed is about to be shared (dominated?) by tech-toys for those with braces still on their teeth.

Posted by David LaPlante
Homepage: http://davidlaplante.typepad.com/

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AT&T launches OGO: Dedicated messaging device

AT&T Wireless just launched a new device called the OGO aiming to use a low price to tempt young messaging maniacs.

The Ogo doesn't do voice. Only messaging.  Send instant messages, e-mails as well as SMS. $17.99 flat rate for unlimited messaging. Brilliant!

I gurantee there will be much flap over this. Most folks over age 35 won't "get it." By that, I mean (a) they won't buy it, and (b) they don't understand that they were never intended to buy it. That is, unless they have children in the age group of 12-25. Nonetheless, there will be much debate over the significance of this device and most will try to compare it to the business mobile phone/PDA's that enjoy the limelight.

Think about it: You're a parent and you want your kid off the home computer. Away from the porn surfing. Outside. You give them a cell phone and they rack up huge voice minutes. You give them an OGO and they can message their little hearts out with a flat rate fee and no chance of surfing a little porn on the side. Hey - it's reality folks.

I suspect, however, that some folks in business will use it. Heck, I'm half inclined to give it to my employees. Voice is lazy, racks up huge bills, and SMS is hard on most people on phones without a keyboard.

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AT&T Wireless SMS E-mail Server Number

If you're curious, I figured out that the SMS E-mail Server Number is: 0000000000

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The Best Lightweight Laptop on the Market: Sacrificing power for convenience

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Ever since I bought my first laptop (a Zeos 386 running DOS in 1988), I've always bought the fastest and beefiest laptop available. When Clevo started distributing in 1998 the first desktop CU's in a laptop through DVLaptop I was happy. Being able to edit video and have the beef of a desktop in a portable laptop was awesome. Except for battery life and the weight. But for the performance, I was always willing to make those trade-offs. Up until 2002, I was more likely to spend the better of my days in Flash, Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator and PowerPoint along with Office.

That's changed and now that I travel almost weekly, spend more time revising Agreements and trying to keep up with e-mail, the need for beef has melted away.

So it was with great pain I searched for a small lightweight puny wimpy feminine cream puff of a laptop. And then I demoed a Tablet PC and got hooked.

I looked at about five different Tablet PCs and immediately dismissed the slate style. The hybrid, while heavier, offered more versatility.

All of them are wimpy, but I ended up settling on the Toshiba for one reason only: SVGA 1400x1050 screen resolution. Having spent the last four years living life at UXGA 1600x1200, going down to VGA 1024x768 was like losing 75 percent of my desktop ability to multitask.

I'd say I spend 80 percent of my time in laptop mode; however, when I use the tablet functions, they rock.

I especially like Microsoft OneNote.

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