Facebook Growing Faster Than Google

In doing some research on social media today, I came across this blog that compared the number of unique web visitors between Facebook, Twitter and Google. So I ran my own comparison to see how things have changed since that article was written, but things are generally the same.

The most surprising thing was that Facebook is catching up to Google’s unique visitor count. As the chart below shows, the gap between the two is closing, which must be troubling to Google.

Meanwhile, Twitter still has a way to go, at least when it comes to its web traffic. Twitter uniques were rather low compared to the other two. Check out the graph, from Compete.com.

Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Google - Unique Visitors

In this same time 12 month period, Facebook’s growth is 38%, while Google’s is up only 4%.  Twitter’s annual growth is at 15%.

See the entire free graph at Compete.

What’s On My Tivo

After writing yesterday’s post, I thought it would be better to create a graph to explain what exactly is on my Tivo.

What's On My Tivo

200 Hour Tivo and Nothing to Watch

I’ve been using DVRs for many years and love them. But one of my biggest problems is that I always have lots of shows that I never watch. I have a 200 hour Tivo XL and I have nothing to watch. It’s just one big 200 hour to-do list.

Lately, I’ve been turning on my TV and get anxiety because I have over 50 shows that I’ve been avoiding watching. Or that I just don’t feel like watching right now.  But they’re staring at me in the face.

I think watching TV today is all about mood, time and attention.What’s my mood? How much time to I want to spend watching TV? How much attention can I give the show?

Watching Static

Should I catch up on one of the 7 episodes of The Daily Show I have saved? Or should I watch the latest episode of Jersey Shore instead? I guess it depends.

Here’s how my Tivo recordings break down:

  1. Definitely Will Watch Later.
  2. Might Watch This Later.
  3. Save To Re-Watch It Later.
  4. Never Watch But Will Keep Anyway.
  5. Why Did I Record This?

I know I’m not alone. I read about one blogger, Louis Gray, where he talks about having the movie Cold Mountain on his Tivo from September 2005! His post was written in January 2007, so that’s over a year of having to look at “Cold Mountain” on your Tivo.

I’ve done the the same thing, and have kept some movies for over a year. Sometimes I just can’t bear to delete some shows because there’s just the tiniest chance that I might be in the mood to watch it. But I don’t.

A great new feature for Tivo would be a better archiving system. That way, I could tell Tivo to save them somewhere else (my home PC,  external HD, the Cloud?) and remove them from the “Now Playing” list. Somewhat like my own personal TV locker. But Tivo’s only archiving option is still “Save to VCR”.  Um, how many kids today actually know what a VCR is?

This Week in “What I’m Reading”

This week I enjoyed these articles:

  • Microsoft apparently killed a project that would let console and PC gamers play each other. Why? Because PC gamers would always beat console gamers. The advantage is the controller. A mouse and keyboard is much more accurate than a console controller. Anyway, I found this interesting since I’ve been playing around with Portal on Steam for Mac.

    “[B]oth programmers and consumers view online video as a complement to, rather than as a substitute for, traditional linear MVPD [multichannel video programming distributor] service,” it wrote in the filing.

    But furthermore, Comcast said it doesn’t see online video emerging as a competitive threat any time soon. There are “several impediments — technological, pricing-related, and rights-related — [that] make it highly unlikely that online video will become a substitute for MVPD service in the foreseeable future,” the cable company writes.”

    That is all!

    New IPTV Global Forecast Released – 2010 to 2014

    I’m happy to announce that my latest report, the 2010 IPTV Global Forecast – 2010 to 2014, was released last week by MRG.  The report covers a forecast of global IPTV subscribers, as well as spending for six IPTV product categories in addition to total IPTV service revenue, and system revenue from 2010 to 2014.

    MRG is forecasting that the  number of global IPTV subscribers will grow from 41.2 million at the end of 2010 to 101.7 million in 2014, a compound annual growth rate of 25.3%.

    This is the Spring/Summer edition and we will publish an update six months from now for the Fall/Winter 2010 with an updated forecast.  We strive to cover the IPTV market very closely because of all the activity going on, so we have been publishing twice a year for many years.

    IPTV Subscriber Forecast - 2010 to 2014

    In addition to subscriber forecasts, the report also has 5-year forecasts for the entire IPTV ecosystem, broken down by regions around the world.

    This report reveals which region will have the most subscriber revenues by 2014, which specific service providers will lead the way, and also look at some recommendations and conclusions.

    I’ll follow up in future posts and discuss some of these topics in more detail. If you have any questions, just comment on this post or send me an email.

    New Technologies for Set Top Boxes

    a 2.5 inch Solid state disk, E-disk from Bitmicro
    Image via Wikipedia

    As part of my role as an IPTV Analyst, I keep track of over 100 vendors that are part of the entire IPTV ecosystem. That includes lots of software and hardware equipment, like VOD servers, video head-ends, and middleware. One of the largest fields is set-top boxes.

    Currently at MRG, we track over 25 worldwide suppliers of IPTV set-top boxes. There are many big name companies, but also smaller ones from countries like China, Turkey, France and the U.K.

    Unlike U.S cable companies where Cisco and Motorola have a huge advantage, IPTV is still relatively open and does not have worldwide standards.  As a result, any company can release a STB with or without a hard drive.

    Recently, I read the Pirelli Broadband was looking to sell its set-top box business. That’s not a surprise since STBs are now becoming a commodity. Pirelli is perhaps best known for its tires (and perhaps its calendars) but its broadband division supplies set-tops to a number of Service Providers, especially in Italy.

    Here in the U.S., set-top boxes are subsidized by the cable, satellite and IPTV firms. But there’s still a retail market for products like Tivo, Roku, and soon, Google TV. In the U.K. and Italy, set-top boxes are sold at retail outlets, so consumers have a lot more choice when it comes to getting a new box.

    In the last year or so, there have been lots of new technologies coming to IPTV set-tops. Here are some of the top new trends I’ve seen:

    • Solid State Hard Drives. The newest models are now coming with solid-state hard drives, rather than the traditional drives with moving parts. Moving to flash-based solid state drives means faster speeds, since hard drives are usually the slowest part of any computer. Using solid state storage increaseses the cost (at least initially), but the box can be smaller, and quieter. Traditional hard drives also have a high failure rate compared to flash memory.  Solid State Drives (SSDs) are still very new, so very few STB manufacturers are using them yet.
    • Hybrid Connections. Most IPTV boxes today come with more than 1 TV input. There’s an Ethernet port (naturally), but also coax for over-the-air signals or even for satellite.  These STBs are called hybrids because they can connect to a variety of different inputs, so that Service Providers can deliver over-the-air signals, satellite, and Internet video from one box.  Cable boxes, by contrast, usually just have 1 coax connection, and don’t have Ethernet connectivity.
    • Home Networking Connections. The landscape for home networking is still evolving. Sure, Wi-Fi is popular but new standards are still emerging for wired connections (including power lines, phone lines and coaxial cables). Today, the IEEE and ITU have passed similar but competing wireline home networking specifications. The IEEE has passed P1901 (based on the HomePlug AV specification), while the ITU passed its G.hn spec recently. STB vendors have held off carrying either of these technologies inside their boxes, because the two specs are not interoperable. And offering both would be cost prohibitive. So for now, it seems like Wi-Fi is the next logical step.
    • Built-in WiFi. Surprisingly, most IPTV set-tops don’t come with wireless connectivity. Manufacturers want to keep the price of boxes low, so they leave out components that most consumers find indispensable. That means that consumers have had to buy dongles for their boxes, to connect Wi-Fi adapters. It’s not a great solution, but it works. It also passes along the cost to the consumer. Newer set-tops are coming with built-in Wi-Fi. Airties, is one company that I can recall that comes with Wi-Fi.
    • Intel Processors. Set top box company Amino Communications showed off the first Intel-based box earlier this year. Why is that a big deal? It essentially means the box is like a netbook–it comes with more storage, more RAM and is faster than ordinary set-tops. The Intel chip (while more expensive than regular STB chips) allows processor intensive applications, like Adobe Flash. That means consumers will be able to watch Hulu on their TV sets. Clearly, Intel is looking to stay relevant with consumer electronics devices, like set-top boxes, and even mobile devices.

    Bonus: This quick piece about how Solid-State Drives are much faster when it comes to boot-up and start times, but almost no PC manufacturers are using them yet.

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    What I’m Reading This Week

    Image representing hulu as depicted in CrunchBase
    Image via CrunchBase

    What am I reading this week?

    I was interested in Mashable’s poll where they asked readers to choose between YouTube and Hulu. The winner, by a wide margin, is YouTube. Sure, it’s just a reader poll, and nothing very scientific, but it was a good look at what readers think.

    At Videonet, I read a post that talked about cloud-based pay TV services like TV Everywhere. Sure, the post is really just promoting a webcast from research firm Parks Associates, but I think it’s true that the geographic boundaries are really closing down. No longer does AT&T, for example, have to limit themselves to just their own regional footprint in the U.S. With its IPTV service, AT&T can deliver U-verse to anyone in the world, no matter where they live. This is already occurring with game consoles like the Xbox 360 supporting VOD and even live sporting events through ESPN.

    This story, about Hulu, describes how the company is repackaging TV.  It describes the finances behind Hulu and how it may even make a profit in 2010.  I also read a story about how Hulu will go international, even though it failed to begin a UK version recently. Oh and one more Hulu story: this one From MediaPost describes how Hulu is getting twice as many ads as YouTube.

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    My Stories at Streaming Media

    I worked at Streaming Media for several years, starting their weekly newsletter as a freelancer, then joining the company as Senior Editor.

    It was a great time because the Internet was just heating up in 1999, but broadband was holding back a lot of the growth of video. Nevertheless, the company was successful because of the conferences they put on every year, and, naturally, the editorial. The web site covered the art, business and technical aspects of Internet audio and video. I even did a live weekly talk show, back before the word podcasts were coined.

    While I was Googling myself this week, I found a link to all my stories on Streaming Media. It’s a lot! I used to write about 5 news stories a day, plus a few feature stories per month for the web site. Then, for the print magazine, I’d have to write even more content. Things really started to heat up as I began covering companies that began shutting down.  Suddenly, the dot coms went bust.

    Anyway, it’s kind of fun to look through some of the articles I wrote. I covered the beginning of the Internet video industry, way back before YouTube ever existed. Way back before Mark Zuckerberg was ever in college and thinking about Facebook.

    Tivo Is Looking for Bluetooth Developers

    I’ve been a user of Tivo for a long time. Actually, I was initially a ReplayTV user, which came out around the same time as Tivo.

    Bluetooth Engineer Job at Tivo

    But I’m a big fan of Tivo, and I think they’ve done some really great things. I follow Tivo on Twitter and Facebook. Plus, I also like to track job openings at Tivo.

    Yesterday I received a notification that there were 9 job openings at the company.

    One of the openings, was for a Bluetooth developer. Currently, Tivo’s don’t support Bluetooth, so I was a little surprised about this. I guess that future versions of Tivo boxes will have Bluetooth capability. But for what?

    A Bluetooth keyboard and remote is the most likely possibility. I saw this article on Engadget about a future Bluetooth keyboard for Tivo. But perhaps they are looking at other connectivity options like a camera or connection to smartphones or networked PCs.

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    Have You Seen This Man at the Oakland Riots?

    I was watching live coverage of the riots in Oakland last night, after the Mehserle verdict came in.

    One scene showed a bunch of people tearing down the Foot Locker gates in downtown Oakland.

    But amidst this scene, I spied a fascinating man standing and just looking around.

    He was wearing glasses, a hat, and what looks like a fake mustache.

    Basically, he looks right out of the 70s.

    Is he a time traveling undercover 70s  cop? Does he time travel to riots all over the world, and at any time to get some booty? Does he just watch and see all?

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