The (useless) evolution of the NetFlix envelope

An Article on CNN descripes how Netflix worked for 7 years on improving their envelope to be sent by mail the most cost efficient way. Nice try. They should have asked themselves, if their distribution channel was future-safe in the first place.

How well those iconic red envelopes will help the company fend off the newest threat – video-on-demand – remains to be seen.

I don’t think envelopes will matter any longer in a few years time.

Links & News – 22. April

Is Philips fooling us or not?

Scanning through my feeds, I noticed that there is a a lot of talk about the new Philips technology, that will not let the user skip ads, as AdJab writes, for example.

At the same time I now found out that
adfreak has received a comment by Philips, that this is not really the case, instead they just added a new functionality that let’s you choose whether you want to view the ads or not.

To me that sounds a little like Philips is trying to cover up a PR desaster.
Let’s see what other information we’ll get in the next couple of days…

Links & News – 20th April

  • Adverblog points us to two adver-podcasts (or whatever they’re called) by Amazon and Bacardi.
  • Nike has developed JogaTV, a desktop application that downloads latest soccer videos and related footage to a desktop near you.
  • Gareth Kay links to a new ad for VW by their new ad agency CP&B. Nice idea, great execution!
  • Google integrates real estate and auto search into its general search, writes Charlene Li. Making Google Base more relevant then ever.

Links & News – 11. April

  • Pew Internet & American Life Project Report::

    For a group of „high-powered“ online users – early adopters of home broadband who are the heaviest internet users – the internet is their primary news source on the average day.

  • Newspapers try to lure new, young readers writes the Post Gazette.
  • But USA Today writes: „Young people turn to the Web for news“.
  • A study by Forrester apparently shows, that people don’t listen to podcasts, writes arstechnica. But there is also hope:

    Forrester is projecting that the number of households using podcasts will grow from 700,000 to 12.3 million over the next four years in the US alone.