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Disney + and the Rise of The Self Marketer

I've been following Disney's pursuit of their own streaming service and the process they've undertaken to get there. For starters they signaled their intention and then acquired the infrastructure of MLB's streaming group. That was a key and very schrewed move, as the MLB infrasructure was already supporting other companies, like WWE, and was a proven, battle tested and state of the art network. It also brought with it relationships and talent that understood how to stream and scale.

Next they signaled again, telling the market that properties of theirs in the Marvel family would be coming to Disney+.  This was less about taking the content away from rival Netflix than it was the first step in how the streaming service would be where the best Disney content could be found when it launches. And then yesterday Disney indicated that as soon as the theatrical release obligations of their cinematic efforts were up, they would immediately become available on Disney+ which is lining up massive distribution from the start.

Well, reading between the lines, the battle lines are being drawn but that's not as important as what Disney is doing with Disney+. It's about you, the viewer, and how you interact with Disney, the brand. Up until Disney+ once a video asset left Disney and was aired on a network, shown in a theatre, or offered as a DVD, that asset, much like what the wine and spirits industry understands too well, is that the customer wasn't known.  With Disney+ it's all about the data, and you the customer.

By adding data to the mix, Disney knows who has children watching what. That makes it easy to work with their licensed products team to decide what to market to whom. For their theme parks efforts, Disney+ data crossed with other cookie data they have access to means offers and sales. The list of opportunities goes on and on.

When you add it all up, Disney has done with Disney+ what they have done with the theme park business. Acquire infrastructure (land now technology), engage with the market via distribution (travel agents, airlines and hotels now set top boxes), put together the content (the rides, experiences now video elements). 

Now that Disney will have the data, which connects you to them even more closely, Disney is poised to become the biggest self marketer since Amazon....now that's Imagineering...

The Comunicano Daily for July 28th, 2015

The Comunicano Daily

My co-founder, along with Josh Baylin, in VelocityGrowth, Jeff Belk was one of the key executives who put Qualcomm on the map. There Jeff, who rose to CMO and CSO, instilled a marketing culture amongst a group of inventors, IP attorneys and engineers. Jeff retired from Qualcomm eight years or so ago, but he remains close to many there. His perspective, as someone close to everyone from Paul Jacobs on down provides him the unique insight to author this piece on the recent news and explain why it may be the best thing to happen to San Diego in years. Now, only if the Chargers get a new football stadium....       Are Qualcomm Layoffs a Disaster for San Diego---or an Opportunity? | Xconomy After years of strong corporate and financial growth, the pace of change in the wireless industry has forced a massive global layoff at San Diego-based Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM. If the wireless giant had only 1,000 employees, a layoff of 150 folks would not be big news.     [continue...]       As the owner and user of a OnePlus One Android smartphone I can't wait for the Two to be offered. Not only is the OnePlus One the best Android I ever owned, it may be the best value smartphone around. Give a read of the next three stories and see if you would pay more for less.       How the OnePlus 2 Plans to Be More Than a One-Hit Wonder Imagine being Dexy's Midnight Runners, circa 1982. "Come On Eileen" just came out of nowhere and is blowing up. It's on every radio station, and playing at every party. Nobody had ever heard of you; now you're everywhere.     [continue...]     The OnePlus 2 pushes the boundaries of how cheap a flagship smartphone can be The bang for your buck ratio here is pretty great There are more options than ever for getting a good, cheap smartphone, and last year's OnePlus One was a standout. For $300, you got a well-made, nice-looking phone with cutting-edge hardware and few compromises to be found (assuming its 5.5-inch size didn't put you off).     [continue...]     OnePlus 2: everything you need to know The OnePlus One was released last year Under the hood Potential buyers were required to obtain an invitation through OnePlus' website before they were able to buy it, with the first 100 handsets offered as part of a "Smash" promotion where people were invited to destroy their existing phone for a chance to buy a One for just $1.     [continue...]       The Terminator movies were legendary and help put "the Arnold" on the map once and for all. Never shy about his love of the WWF, largely due to a friendship forged with Jesse "The Body" Ventura years ago, Arnold is going to be featured in a new video game, bringing back his "Terminator" character....Watch the two videos and see how the computer generated graphics look, and how good some of the WWF heels are at acting.....       Arnold Schwarzenegger WWE Commercial: T2 Bar Scene Reenactment Okay so Arnold Schwarzenegger has been revisiting a lot of his old Terminator scenes lately, not just in Terminator Genisys which resets and revisits some moments from the first film in different ways, but also in a new commercial for the WWE 2k16 video game.     [continue...]       Everyone is looking to one up Uber....and here's a new spin on it.  In London to be a taxi driver you have to pass "The Knowledge." Well now aspiring drivers can learn London streets and make money doing it...       Taxi app Gett to deliver champagne as Uber battle intensifies The champagne will be delivered on motorbike by people learning The Knowledge "For the last five years, we've been moving customers around safely and now Gett Clicquot will use the same business model to bring this revolutionary new service to Londoners," said Remo Gerber, Gett's UK CEO.     [continue...]       It's not taking long for changes to happen at Cisco follow John Chambers retirement. New people in key positions. Some execs leaving. A flatter, more nimble organization. Sounds like what is also taking shape at Microsoft is happening at Cisco as well.       Cisco Recruits Two Outsiders as Executives Cisco Systems Inc.'s new chief executive marked his first day in the job by naming two outsiders to high-profile management posts. Chuck Robbins, who assumed the CEO role at the networking equipment maker Monday after John Chambers' ended his tenure after 20 years, said in a blog post that Zorawar Biri Singh will serve as senior vice president and chief technology officer.     [continue...]       If you're a Comcast customer you may be wondering who else is on your WiFi network. Basically Comcast has taken a page out of the European operator's mode of operation, and enabled their subscribers to latch on to other subscribers networks.       Comcast Hits 10M WiFi Hotspots Comcast said Monday that it surpassed the milestone of 10 million WiFi hotspots nationwide, including wireless access points installed in public areas and neighborhood hotspots powered by second antennas contained in WiFi gateways deployed in subscriber homes.     [continue...]       Verizon has video on the brain. Their new G90 service is starting trials across the USA and is looking like it's closer to becoming a reality.       Verizon Mobile Video Service Details Uncovered: To Be Called Go90 (Exclusive) Verizon is getting ready to launch a new mobile video service called Go90 this summer, Variety has learned. Go90 promises users full episodes of TV shows from select networks as well as music videos and other shortform content, and the company will at least initially offer the service entirely free...     [continue...]       Last week PayPal went public. This week Visa retorts with an investment in Stripe.       Visa Invests in Stripe at $5 Billion Valuation and Strikes Commercial Deal, Too Credit card companies think they have a found an ally in the increasingly competitive world of online payments. Its name is Stripe. Visa has inked a commercial agreement with the payments startup, and has separately made an investment in the San Francisco-based company that values it at $5 billion.     [continue...]       The medical world has lagged for years in the area of IT for the physician. Now it seems to be catching up.       Efficient doctors need IT prescription Whether using products such as Telehealth, which uses apps and texting to treat patients without the need to visit hospital, Sleepio, an online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) programme aiming to reduce insomnia, or Simman 3G, a robot that makes sure doctors are prepared to treat patients with allergic reactions, medicine is constantly changing - and GPs, running practices as small businesses, must adapt, cut costs and find innovative treatments.     [continue...]     Software Turns Smartphones Into Tools for Medical Research SAN FRANCISCO - Jody Kearns doesn't like to spend time obsessing about her Parkinson's disease. The 56-year-old dietitian from Syracuse, New York, had to give up bicycling because the disorder affected her balance. But she still works, drives and tries to live a normal life.     [continue...]       I love lists of tips. Here are three to help you through your day..       20 Great Podcasts for Entrepreneurs - Listen up, makers. :) by Product Hunt A collection curated by Product Hunt, featuring products like The Pitch, StartUp Podcast Season 2, How To Start A Startup , The Twenty Minute VC (podcast), and This is PM Podcast     [continue...]     15 Essential Content Creation Apps You Need Right Now Writing is your drawcard. It's the number one tool you have at your fingertips for marketing an online business. So it needs to be good. You need to write compelling copy that engages readers, gets them to listen up and encourages them to buy.     [continue...]     27 travel hacks that even frequent fliers don't know Even the most seasoned jetsetter will learn a thing or two from these travel hacks.     [continue...]

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The Comunicano Daily for Thursday December 17, 2014

The Comunicano Daily

Changes. Lots and lots of changes in mobile. T-Mobile rolls a stash of data. Doctors make video house calls. Sprint drops their sponsorship of Nascar. Those stories and more are all just below...So now onto the news..       T-Mobile Allows Subscribers to Hold on to Unused Mobile Data     T-Mobile USA, the fourth largest wireless carrier in the United States, said on Tuesday that it would allow customers to roll their unused mobile Internet data into the next month's billing. Or, as John Legere, the company's chief executive, put it in a video broadcast: "What you don't use, you won't lose."     [continue...]     A Doc in Your Pocket: Doctor on Demand Gets Smarter As you travel to your destination this holiday season, you may be bringing bags filled with presents - as well as runny noses, colds, flus, extra stress and high emotions. And there's a good chance that you'll see your primary-care doctor or psychologist before the year is out.     [continue...]     T-Mobile US confirms 700MHz LTE network live in Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Minneapolis and Washington DC TeleGeography's free daily email summary of the world's top telecom news stories.     [continue...]       You may wonder why Sprint is giving almost 15 months of notice to NASCAR that it's dropping its title sponsorship. The reason is simple. It will take a long time to find a sponsor ready pony up the kind of money it takes to sponsor and support such a massive sponsorship every week during the NASCAR season...       Sprint to Drop Nascar Partnership After 2016 Season Sprint has decided not to extend its Nascar title sponsorship for the Sprint Cup Series, citing the need to focus on its core business. After the 2016 season, the telecommunications giant will allow the partnership to expire. Nascar has partnered with Sprint for years.     [continue...]       In light of the Sony hack encrypted email is going to be the rage. Obviously, with Gmail and Google Apps so widely used, Google is sending a message that they're getting ready to offer that to their users.       Google's alpha-stage email encryption plugin lands on GitHub Google has updated its experimental End-to-End email encryption plugin for Chrome and moved the project to GitHub. The firm said in a Tuesday blog post that it had "always believed strongly that End-To-End must be an open source project." The alpha-stage, OpenPGP-based extension now includes the first contributions from Yahoo's chief security officer, Alex Stamos....     [continue...]       NBC wants to make sure you can watch their content. Anywhere. But they've put a few catches to insure that their cable subscribers only see it--for now.       NBC to roll out live streaming - but not so fast, cord cutters Saturday Night Live isn't live streaming just yet. NBC has announced plans to begin live streaming its network shows, but cord cutters won't have access to the new service. The peacock network will start streaming to mobile and desktop devices on Tuesday, but viewers will need to provide a login tied to a cable subscription to gain access.     [continue...]       Google Ventures is moving big time into healthcare.        Google Ventures Shifts Focus to Health Care Google 's venture-capital arm is moving strongly into health care and life-sciences startups, mirroring shifts at the Internet giant. More than one-third of the money Google Ventures invested in 2014 went to health care and life-sciences companies, up from 9% each of the prior two years.     [continue...]       While Marriott and Sheraton have already stated their no-key required, no check-in approaches, along comes Hilton with their own claims.       Hilton's digital check-in and room selection rolled out worldwide 17 Dec 2014 | Get Free Access to Breaking Hospitality News Here [News, Information Technology] Hilton Worldwide has announced that its pioneering digital check-in and room selection technology is now live across more than 4,100 hotels spanning 11 brands worldwide. This includes more than 260 hotels across Europe, Middle East and Africa.     [continue...]       Comunicano client PixiePath's CEO Bryan Field-Elliot was was interviewed on That Drone Show this morning. You can hear via YouTube just what PixiePath is all about.       PixiePath CEO On Drone Fleet Management Platform You can watch PixiePath CEO Bryan Field-Elliot talk all about Camera Drones, Quadcopters, Multirotors and more Video Podcasts at ThatDroneShow.com     [continue...]       The next set of stories are all about drones. How they get used, where they can and can't and what may keep them from transforming business and privacy as we know it today.       The Future of HealthTech - Ambulance Drones In December 2013, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos caused quite a stir with the announcement of his company's plans to offer 30-minute product deliveries via unmanned aerial vehicles (more commonly referred to as "drones"). Drones have been deployed by the U.S.     [continue...]     Drone Shows L.A.'s Expo Line Route from a Bird's-Eye View (VIDEO) L.A. has become a drone development center, in part because of Hollywood's desire for great aerial shots, and in part because of the tech explosion in Silicon Beach and Downtown L.A. A journalist can pick up a phone and find out if any of the city's hottest drone companies has...     [continue...]     New York City's Drone Ban Would Be the Strictest in the Country ​A New York City council member is introducing legislation that would ban drones in the city, according to draft legislation obtained by Motherboard. The bill would amend the city's existing administrative code on aviation to severely restrict drones within city limits, essentially banning them except under very specific circumstances.     [continue...]     Flying a drone in the UK: What you need to know Drones of all shapes and sizes will be popular Christmas presents this year, but while some of the most dramatic videos are shot by flying over skyscrapers and famous landmarks, few pilots are aware of the laws preventing drone flying in built up areas.     [continue...]

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LTE-Advanced is a Sports Programming Opportunity on Steroids

The flying P has been the Flyers' primary logo since the beginning. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

LTE Advanced is something I'm starting to see rolling out as I travel. It's actually been here in Portugal for about a year though not really named LTE-A. The speeds are insane. Something like 150 megs on mobile. So what this means to me is how sports and entertainment will take on a whole new life on mobile devices.  As someone who grew up working around the growth of PRISM in Philadelphia, where it was one of the USA's first regional sports and entertainment networks to offer cable customers home games of the Philadelphia Flyers on cable, to be able to watch first run movies without leaving their homes before HBO carried them and to see other premium content, I can see the parallels so very clearly.

We'll start  to see sports packages on your mobile devices that make MLB's At Bat seem rudimentary. This is also going to be a massive opportunity for the PayPerView business and for out of market rights and viewing. For example, Real Madrid can sell their rights to specific operators in specific markets outside of Spain. Exclusively. For the operators, they can build on fan loyalty, or better yet, Real Madrid can become a globally operating MVNO, where the money they make on the content, easily covers the cost of voice, text and data

This would also be a boom to mobile operators who would rather be infrastructure providers and pipe suppliers, letting others take on the marketing of the services, which creates a massive opportunity for a company like ITSON, who wants to change how mobile subscribers pick, buy and consume their plans and services a massive opportunity. This is why net neutrality rapidly comes to the front line, but there will be so many different business plays by the operators possible, the question will become which model will work best where.

The IEEE's Spectrum has a nice take on what the technology means as it makes you realize what's ahead for us with mobile.

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The App Store Onslaught

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Have you noticed at which the number of apps being updated in the Apple App Store has increased lately? Between new apps being launched along with updates and bug fixes for iOS 6 as well as to work more and better with the iPad Mini, the volume of updates since Thanksgiving has accelerated.

This is because of one reason. It's called the holiday break before CES. Taken seperately, there's no issue with Apple's super staff who manage app submissions and approvals from taking a well deserved holiday break, espeically for new apps going into the store. But with CES starting on January 5 (well AT&T's Developer Summit is then at the Palms) and as apps are the new products for many, getting into the App Store is equivilant to landing a slot in every Wal*Mart or being found on the shelves at Costco to a brand.

That's why you are seeing so many apps being pushed out now.

Miss the window that reportedly closes the week of December 17 and it likely will be when CES starts before new apps appear. 

 

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It's An Apple, It's A Nokia, Yes It's SuperPhone

Move over Smartphone, a new sheriff is in town, and it's called the Superphone. At least thats the moniker being plastered about via GigaOm's founder Om Malik, who in an comprehensive overview is describing just what is going on in the smartphone/superphone market.

The comment which caught my eye is his closing comment about M&A activities where Om opined about a New York Times comment that:

If nothing else, the SuperPhones has created a demand for mobile apps, The New York Times says. Increased M&A of these mobile apps is up next, the Times says.

You see, as I wrote last month, the App Stores have become the equal to the super merchandisers, like WalMart, aggregating a diverse set of products. Right now the app stores take a slice of the pie (i.e. up to 30 percent I hear) from the companies that sell via the retail store front. In many ways this reminds me of the franchisee's contribution to the master franchiser who collects a piece of each sale, in exchange for the use of the name and other essential benefits. With the App Stores it includes an SDK, a set of API's, a common interface on devices and the Web, promotion to attract the users to the store, a payment mechanism which includes transaction procession and settlement, including how chargebacks and fraud are handled, etc.

By offering the "all in one place" operation the App Stores are both the destination and the commerce platform, thus enabling the growth, sale and adoption of so many new applications. This makes me wonder how soon before we see more activity from the largest writers and publishers of software, such as Oracle, Microsoft and Symantic, etc. who have very little, if anything really out there on the new Superphones/Smartphones to rave about.

Get A Life! I Mean, Get a Number In Second Life

Well it seems that just like in the gaming world, where Microsoft's X Box Live has been racking up voice minutes for years, has seen Second Life roll out voice services to a point where 15 million minutes were consumed last year, at a rate of 700,000 users per month signing up. That's faster than Vonage and may be faster than Skype at this point.

With the ability to call and be called from your first life universe, basically what Linden Labs (the creators of Second Life) are doing is seeking to become a second Skype. Depending on how "open" the Second Life Universe is, if there are such things as API's it won't be long before Skype has a "Second Life" calling capability, or would that be Third Life once the IPO and make it so Skype users can call Skype 2L users directly, without ins and outs of the pre-first life PSTN network.

All joking aside, what this is about is monitization and connecting. In Second Life people want to communicate and VoIP is a proven way, ala X Box Live to do that.