When Dish announced their new ad-skipping tech, response was fairly muted. Sure it was some cool technology – the experience is seamless in that you notice maybe the first second of a commercial and then a little notification pops you over the commercials entirely – but TV execs are reportedly upset by Dish’s unilateral decision.
Fox’s Peter Rice said it was “a strange thing to do” and NBC is still evaluating it. However, what is really interesting is that Dish decided to go ahead with the service at all.
The system works because Dish is currently recording all prime-time network content onto its Hopper DVRs. This content consists of all of the big shows – Grey’s Anatomy, Parks and Recreation, etc. – parceled out and ready to watch. The consumer doesn’t even have to set a reminder. The content is just there.
This is amazing news for broadcast TV. It allows a few unique things to happen. First, it ensures content discovery is forefront in the consumer’s mind. When you roll into the ABC channel, for example, you might want to watch your favorite ABC show (that I can’t think of any ABC shows off the top of my head is a testament to the problems broadcasters are facing right now, but that’s a different post) and you pop into the ABC folder. There, next to your favorite show, is another show that’s gotten great ratings or at least good word of mouth. There are a couple of episodes saved so it’s easy to just drop into the show without any problem. Imagine if, a few years ago, Lost or another huge, sprawling epic drama was available online immediately after it aired. This sort of episode saturation is a new paradigm for TV watching, one that even time-shifting advocates didn’t foresee.
Second, it ensures that every show will get a fair shot and, more important, broadcast shows will be seen in a different, more “premium” light than cable shows. As it exists today, the service only works for prime-time broadcast networks. You can always pop over to HBO GO and the like, but what about the rest of those reality shows like American Pickers, Real Housewives Of Reseda, American Gothic Skull Pickers, and Man Vs. Food Vs. Wild? If you want to view the entire season at once, you’re going to have to figure out some alternative source.
Now we come to the ad skipping. Considering Dish’s Hopper is a win-win for broadcasters and consumers alike, what’s the problem? Dish tried something new and made the unilateral decision to programmatically simulate what consumers are doing anyway. Clearly the networks see this feature as going just a bit too far. Obviously everyone with a DVR skips over commercials. It’s a given and it’s the way things work now. However, for Dish to formalize the process programmatically is a wild move. It’s akin to a movie theatre allowing folks to vote on whether the audience will see those inane pre-feature ads and previews.
I personally believe the value given by making entire seasons available immediately far surpasses any damage ad-skipping could do. By recording every single prime time TV episode, Dish creates fans. These fans will eventually watch that broadcast content live and maybe watch previous episodes in the ad skipping interface. For TV execs to even consider this technology to be bad for the media is evidence of an unnuanced and calcified worldview. But, then again, what else is new?
This is the same European version we’ve already spent so much time with, just stopping by the FCC to get its wireless paperwork in order. There’s no LTE onboard, but the phone would handle HSPA+ on AT&T or just EDGE on T-Mo if it was (now legally) carried into the States. The regulatory label also helpfully alludes to one of the phone’s key selling points: its 2,100mAh battery, which reportedly lasts for a tablet-like ten hours under load. It’ll be globally available from May 29th, if you fancy getting into the import / export business.
Samsung Galaxy S III gets permission to enter US, still only with HSPA+ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 03:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A week ago today, developer Arun Thampi detailed on his blog how the Path app for iOS accessed users’ contact information and uploaded that data to Path’s servers — all without any explicit permission granted on the user’s part. That sparked quite the firestorm, including investigations into which other apps behaved in a similar manner (quite a few, it turns out), and some responses from a number of other app makers — Twitter, for one, has acknowledged that it does store users’ contact data, but that it now plans to adjust its app to more clearly inform users of that behavior. Now, Apple itself has also responded, with spokesman Tom Neumayr telling AllThingsD that “apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines,” but that it is “working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release.” Still no word on when we can expect that software release, though.
Incidentally, this news comes on the same day that Congressmen Henry Waxman and G.K. Butterfield sent a letter to Apple over the issue, asking that it respond to a number of privacy-related questions no later than February 29th.
iPhone address book issue prompts response from Apple, apps’ access to contact data will require user permission originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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