Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
TiVo is designed for the masses - bringing new technologies into our lounge rooms without getting too technical. Amazon's deal with TiVo - letting TiVo owners play videos downloaded directly from Amazon on their televisions - is a master stroke. It's two household names joining forces, Amazon picking up a large install base of users and TiVo picking up Amazon's massive customer base. When the dust settles, expect Amazon/TiVo to be one of those still standing.
When TiVo finally comes to Australia this year it will be backed by a marketing blitz targeting Mums n' Dads users - helped by the fact it's backed by the Seven national television network. A TiVo video download service is also on the cards, which is perfect because all TiVo users will have broadband anyway. To cover all bases, Seven has even acquired a slice of a wireless ISP to ensure every TiVo can get online.
TiVo is going to be big in Australia because it's going to be cheap, easy to use and backed by an old-world media giant. Even with the ad-skipping disabled, it's still likely to be the most fully-featured and user-friendly off-the-shelf PVR available in Australia. The Beyonwiz DP-S1 might have more bells and whistles but TiVo is going to blow it out of the water , especially as Seven ramps up the advertising ahead of the Beijing Olympics.
Even if TiVo storms the lounge rooms of Australia, video stores have at least a good five years before they're in real danger. It will be a long time before Blu-ray, HD DVD and even ordinary DVDs are dead and buried. Realistically I'd say it's closer to ten years. Why? Because technology rarely moves as fast as people think it will. Shouldn't we all be telecommuting from our homes on the moon by now? Shouldn't the combustion engine have gasped its last breath? Shouldn't newspapers have gone the way of the dodo?
DVD player penetration has only reached saturation point in the last few years. No one is talking about ending the production of DVDs any time soon just because Blu-ray and HD DVD have come along. Even the old VHS format is still hanging in there. As the Blu-ray v HD DVD war slowly sorts itself out (my money is on Blu-ray), the winner will gradually become entrenched in our lounge rooms the way standard DVD players are now. Even on today's best broadband plans downloading a Blu-ray movie is impractical, so people will still turn to the local video store for their movies.
I think it's fair to say that Blu-ray will probably be the last physical video format, but I think it's crazy to say optical discs will shuffle off this mortal coil any time soon. TiVo is a far bigger threat to the traditional video store than iTunes, but the local video store has plenty of life left in it yet.
David Bass
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