Gilded Globes and Robot Kitties

 

First off, I’d like to thank for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association…for allowing comedian Ricky Gervais to stand up before the world and recite such harsh jokes that the network censors had to bleep him multiple times. Maybe they need some AI for that?

And are y’all sure you don’t want to bring him back next year?

Gervais also took on Big Tech at the Golden Globes, explaining that “If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything.”

Ouch. Yeah, bring him back.

This week, for those who are following, all attention will be directed towards the Consumer Electronics Show in Viva Las Vegas.

CNN reported earlier that robot kitties and smart trash cans are getting all the buzz so far. Yes, you read that correctly.

I know I personally have been waiting most of my adult life for a robot kittie. Sony’s had robot dogs forever (“Aibo”), but now to have a robot kittie….Well, I might just get on a plane to Las Vegas so I can see the new “MarsCat” for myself!

With that, it’s back to Monday.

Game of Phones

Today many eyes will be turned to Cupertino for Apple’s fall launch event.  But one of Apple’s original iPhone telco providers is where the heat is actually getting turned up.

Hedge fund Elliott Management has taken a $3.2 billion stake in AT&T, and is raising questions about the company’s M&A strategy and operational execution. In a letter to the company, Elliott has called for new board members and an assessment as to the capabilities of the existing leadership team, including CEO Randall Stephenson.

According to a report from CNBC, Elliott cited “the company’s history of questionable acquisition decisions, including buying DirecTV and Time Warner…In all, AT&T has spent about $200 billion in recent years on acquisitions.”

DirecTV’s price was $67B, Time Warner $104B, and T-Mobile slipped through Stephenson’s finger even as he has tried to pivot the company towards both a wireless and media company. 

But millions of subscribers have left DirecTV since the deal close in 2015, and as for the Time Warner deal outcome, it’s probably too soon to tell. For a good signal, I would suggest keeping an eye on the quality of the emerging HBO lineup, the TV canary in the proverbial wireless coalmine. 

The Bigger Picture

I was laid up most of this past weekend with allergies and a related head cold, so I didn’t make it out to the golf course or even to the Austin green belt for some mountain biking.

But I did spend a lot of time watching sports on TV, starting with the Cotton Bowl on Friday night, some English Premier League games on Saturday morning, some NFL wild card games on Saturday afternoon, some FA cup games Sunday morning, and then more NFL games yesterday.

It was a footballers weekend, and because of the rains and winds acting up in Hawaii, I missed most of the first PGA event of the year (but I have that one on DVR!)

To top it all off, I watched “Jurassic Park” again for the first time since when it first came out in 1993 (Loved those DOS prompts on the computer screens for the park’s security systems!)

All this TV watching got me to thinking about the coming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Seems like everyone I know is asking me if I’ll be there. For the millionth time, no.

I’ve never been to CES, have no compelling business reason TO go, and nobody’s given me any free tickets, so I shan’t be going anytime soon.  But if you are going, have a nice time and enjoy the multitudes. I see all those crowds, it gives me flashbacks to Comdex.  If you’ve never heard of Comdex, well, sorry, I can’t help you.

Most of what I want to learn from CES I can get from the blogs and media coverage, in any event.

Starting with this piece from The New York Times, suggesting that TV makers had better kick it into high gear and move on to the new new thing when it comes to TV watching.

The net of it is is that 3D had its day and there wasn’t enough content to keep people paying a premium for 3D sets, and now “Ultra HD” is the big thing (although the premium demanded for Ultra HD sets will likely keep that a marginal segment of the market for some time).

That leaves the Internet-enablement of TV sets as a logical next push, which, while on its face seems logical, has eluded some pretty smart folks for some time (including the folks at Google).

Me, I’m not so sure I want my TV to become anymore Internet-enabled than it already is. I’ve tried Roku, Apple TV (both gens), and now have a Sony BlueRay player that includes some Internet enablement, and I’m about as enabled as I want to be.

For me, TV is still a relaxing, kick-back experience, save for the few times when I pull out the Wii for some quick tours of “Call of Duty.” My active screen experience is reserved mostly for my computer and/or smartphones.

The TV is the “dumb” box. I’m not sure I want it to get much smarter.

But even if it were to get smarter, the first thing I’d want it to do is find more content, AND the kind of content that I like to watch.

Thus far, even with Netflix, that seems too genius for the propeller heads to have properly figured out.

So, before the TV manufacturing whizzes go off and start to build bigger, bolder, wider, and more “interactive,” don’t forget presenting the basics of filmed entertainment.

We’ll see, and soon enough.

As for CES, if you don’t know much about it and want to know more, Gizmodo provides this useful page giving us a little background. I find that they, CNET, and Engadget have pretty good rundowns of the goings on there.

The event starts tomorrow and runs through this Friday.

The Netflix Identity Crisis

I got the most extraordinary email earlier today, from Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix.

The email is also posted on The Netflix Blog, if you want to go and read it in its entirety.

Upon the heels of Netflix’s announced price increases, which went over with many Netflix customers like a ton of bricks, Hastings is now announcing that Netflix is going to become the “Sybil” of video delivery services, online and off.

That is to say, Netflix as we know it shall be no more.  The Netflix you used to know — you know, the one that delivered DVDs for years and helped close a few thousand Blockbuster stores — well, they’re now going to be called “Qwikster.”

I know, they clearly don’t have a corporate naming department over there at Netflix…err, Qwikster.

From here on out, Hastings explained, Qwikster will do the DVD deliveries.

Netflix, which used to do DVD deliveries, is no longer going to do deliveries, because they’re going to be the streaming part of the former Netflix.

The new Netflix is the same as the old Netflix, minus that key part of DVD deliveries, which apparently is no longer key.

Ya got all that?

Now, let me just say this: I’m a HUGE fan of Netflix and/or Qwikster.  I’m more a fan of the new Netflix than I am the old, meaning I prefer the online streaming delivery model to the USPS model.

However, there’s one big issue with this move: The better content library seems to be in the Qwikster part of the business, which is exactly the opposite of the way it should be.

The streaming delivery model should be the core of the Netflix model, but everytime I go to Netflix online, I struggle to find new and/or interesting titles that have at least a three star rating (I’ve found that’s the minimal threshold for watching movies on Netflix).

In fact, I’ve been watching mostly foreign films (which I have no problem watching whatsoever) lately, because the Netflix library is much deeper with foreign distributors than American ones (read: Hollywood ones).

And therein lies the real problem. Hollywood is still scared to death of being “Napsterized.”  They want control of their content, come hell or highwater.  And the early deals they stuck with Netflix were made when streaming was still a novelty.

Well, those days are over.  Streaming has grown up: It’s convenient, it’s immediate, and it’s a huge business opportunity, for the Hollywood studios as well as filmmakers around the globe.

There’s no stopping it, not even with Netflix’s latest branding identity crisis.  The big question that remains is, who of the big movie industry players is going to step up and make a deal.  A BIG deal, one that offers a deep and wide movie library that benefits consumers, but identifies a business model that can work for the studios and the Netflix/Qwiksters.

Because if THEY don’t, someone is going to.  Or not.  And then the so-called “Napsterization” of Hollywood will make what happened to the music industry seem like “The Bad News Bears” meets “Moneyball.”

Ultimately, avid movie fans like myself want just a handful of small things, none of which seem too much to ask: a robust library of movie choices at reasonable prices delivered the way we prefer.  Again, let me mention that we’re willing to pay for it!

Increasingly, that channel is going to be via streaming, and no amount of putting-head-under-the-sand by Hollywood studios is going to alter that direction.

Despite all the consumer hysteria about this change that’s already bubbling up across the Blogosphere, I have to say, that probably is the best and most valuable lesson from this whole endeavor: The fact that Hastings made his announcement in a letter he sent out to customers via email and posted on the Netflix blog.

His customers, according to the comments section, are mostly not in favor of this move.  But what’s different is: Hastings and his team are given his customers a direct vehicle response to the message he delivered to them.

Only time will tell whether or not Hastings and team heard them.

Crossing The Rubicon

Anybody see the last episodes of “Mad Men” and “Rubicon” last evening?

Spoiler Alert.  If you’ve got them on your DVRs, stop reading now, because I plan to comment on some of the outcomes.

First, Don Draper.  Did anybody see that coming?  Asking the new secretary to marry him on a trip to Disneyland, and using now deceased Anna’s ring? What a small world after all, especially for the lovely researcher, Dr. Faye, who’s on the losing end of this proposition, as she was assumedly in love with Draper, and he with her.

I dreaded Draper’s contacting Faye (or not) the rest of the episode.  The from-the-couch psychotherapy that could be read into that decision (marrying his assistant over the professional working woman), particularly at that point in history…well, it could fill volumes.

Meanwhile, poor Peggy Olson puts on her advertising gumshoes and lands the troubled Topaz account virtually on her own, and nary a person in Sterling Cooper notices due to Don’s newlywed nuptials.

I can’t wait to see where Matthew Wiener takes this thing next season.

As for “Rubicon,” it’s my favorite new show on TV.

It’s everything impatient and reality TV isn’t.  It makes you wait.  It’s slow to unwind.  But the looming backdrop is like a conspiracy unraveling amidst a greater web of conspiracy.

It’s impossible to dive right into this show and understand what’s going on.  From the first episode, the backstory drove the narrative, and the conspiracy, but it’s been one that’s a real pleasure to see unwind.

When the rest of TV is beating up on your intelligence with sensory overload (“Ice Road Truckers,” “Dancing with the Stars”), “Rubicon” has been more like a storyline cabernet that just needed a few weeks to breathe and open up.

And open up it has.  API analyst Will Travers uses his fine analytical abilities to connect one dot to another through most of the season, only to discover there’s a seemingly whole other portrait being painted, one that transcends that of the inside operation being planned by Truxton Spangler.

The terrorist attack in Galveston Bay was planned and masterminded by a cabal of insiders connected to Atlas MacDowell, but they’re convinced Spangler’s left too much of a trail linking the attack (purposely) to Iran, and with Will Travers having learned way too much.

Who’s ultimately pulling the strings, then, becomes the critical question. If not Spangler, if not his associates (who deliver the much feared four leaf clover, a death sentence in the show to date), then who?

That’s the key question left to the imagination, and one that will only likely be answered if “Rubicon” is picked up for another year.

My vote is most assuredly yes…then again, I’ve never been a big “Ice Road Truckers” fan.