Everybody Wants to Rule the Video World
It’s been an interesting week in the world of broadband TV. The twittersphere was all a buzz yesterday as Steve Jobs announced the latest Apple product improvements, the highlight of which was a revamped Internet TV product. The new Apple TV, due out later this month, centers around a sleek little device that plugs into the TV and supports an Ethernet or WiFi connection. At $99, that four-inch-square box comes in at a quarter of the size and a third of the price of the original Apple TV.
In addition to free Internet video from sites like YouTube, you’ll also be able to rent videos from the Apple iTunes store, movies from Netflix and TV episodes from ABC and Fox. Movies are $4.99 and individual TV episodes are $0.99. There is no on-board storage on the new Apple TV. All content is streamed from either the Internet, or from devices connected to the home network. In fact, an upcoming feature called AirPlay will allow a user to stream video, audio or photos from their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to their TV with the touch of a button.
To keep pace, Amazon announced the same day that they will be offering $0.99 TV episodes from ABC and Fox, and in that area they can tout a few advantages over Apple. In Amazon’s case, $0.99 gets you an actual purchase of the episode, not just a rental. Also, their streaming service will work with any TV or device that is compatible with Amazon Video on demand, including TiVo and Roku. Speaking of Roku, in a preemptive strike on the hardware side, they cut the price of their HD streaming box to $69.
You can expect more excitement to come as this space starts to get crowded. Next up will be the actual release of the already announced Google TV, which pits Apple and Google against each other in yet another market niche. Wouldn’t you like to have been a fly on the wall in the boardroom at Google headquarters yesterday?
Author: Rick Yuzzi (68 Articles)
Rick Yuzzi has over 25 years experience in sales, marketing and management. Hired in 1995 to establish the sales department for a fledgling Internet Service Provider that later became ZCorum, he is now a key member of the executive team, overseeing the company's marketing efforts. In addition to blogging on marketing and the industry, Rick also tweets as @ZCorum.