The.Economist.2007-02-10 (966424), страница 35
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It will be free, with advertising breaks—no more than three minutes per hour—either before, duringor after a show, depending on the market. Americans, says Mr de Wahl, are more tolerant ofinterruptions.Joost has “channels”, like ordinary TV, but these are now playlists of videos that start whenever it isconvenient to the viewer. Viewers can import their instant-messaging buddy lists and chat online withfriends while watching the same programme. For advertisers, such engagement is worth something,because the activity proves that somebody is watching, rather than being asleep or out of the room.Combined with other information, such as the computer's IP address and hence its location, advertiserswill be able to target their spots much more accurately—all “Desperate Housewives” fans in a particularneighbourhood, for example—and thus ought to pay a premium.The thing that is missing in this new vision of television, however, is the set itself.
Beaming video from acomputer to a television is possible: Apple and other firms are starting to sell the necessary gadgets. Butuntil it becomes much easier to connect televisions to the internet, big media companies are likely to“wait and see” before committing to Joost, says Jeremy Allaire, the boss of Brightcove, a rival internetvideo firm based in Massachusetts.
In the meantime, thinks Mr Allaire, media firms are mainly interestedin building their own brands, so Brightcove provides content owners with technology to show televisionon their own websites, syndicate their shows to other websites, track audiences and collect advertisingrevenue.There is, in short, no consensus about the best way to combinetelevision with the internet.
Instead, there are a variety ofexperiments, of which Joost is the latest example and YouTubethe best-known. But as with telephony, the internet is unpickingservice delivery from network ownership. Joost, YouTube, iTunesand Netflix do not need their own networks to supply their videoservices: they can piggyback on fast internet links provided byothers.According to iSuppli, a market-research firm, internet downloadswill claim more than one-third of the market for on-demand videoby 2010 (see chart). So just as internet telephony has been badfor traditional phone companies, this “internet bypass” could bebad for the “on demand” video services being offered by cable-TVand telecoms firms over their networks. But by bringing televisionto more screens in more social contexts, all this could providenew models for programme-makers to finance their productionsand offer advertisers new ways to reach consumers. And so Joostand rival services could end up rejuvenating the 75-year-old medium.Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group.
All rights reserved.About sponsorshipElectronic ArtsLooking forward to the next levelFeb 8th 2007 | SAN FRANCISCOFrom The Economist print editionThe world's biggest video-games publisher sees good times aheadEVEN people who do not play video games themselves will probablyhave noticed that the latest round of the industry's three-way fight—between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo—is now under way in earnest.The battle pitches Microsoft's powerful Xbox 360 console against theplucky Nintendo Wii and Sony's mighty PlayStation 3. Given that eachround in these “console wars” lasts five or six years, it is still early days,though Microsoft and Nintendo seem to be doing better than expectedand Sony, the incumbent, seems to be doing worse. But there is muchmore to the fight than hardware: since consoles are often sold at a loss,the real profits come from selling games. And ultimately the games, notthe theoretical capabilities of the hardware, decide which console wins.Electronic Arts, based in Redwood City, California, is the largestindependent publisher of video-game software, with annual revenues ofaround $3 billion and a market share in Europe and North America ofaround 25%.
Its size makes EA a reasonable proxy for the industry asThe Wright stuffwhole. And with the three new consoles now on sale—the launch of thePlayStation 3 next month will complete the line-up in Europe—EA is expecting a good year.Announcing the company's results for the last three months of 2006 on February 1st, EA executives gavethree reasons for optimism about 2007: rewards, as the company reaps the benefits of investment ingames for the new consoles; growth, because the company will release ten wholly owned new titles in2007; and changing business models, due to the online capabilities of the new consoles, expansion intoAsia where online gaming is particularly popular, and the rise of online micro-transactions.
Each of theseareas says something broader about the industry.Like other games publishers, EA hit a bumpy patch in 2006 as gamers reduced their spending inanticipation of the switch from one generation of consoles to the next. The delayed launch of thePlayStation 3 did not help. EA launched four PS3 titles last year, but sales were lower than expectedbecause manufacturing problems meant that Sony had fewer consoles than expected at launch. Sales ofEA's two games for the Nintendo Wii, in contrast, were stronger than expected. Given the Wii's evidentpopularity, and its appeal to non-gamers, EA is now ramping up its development efforts for the consoleand intends to overtake Ubisoft of France to become the second-largest publisher of Wii games behindNintendo itself.EA's greater emphasis on wholly owned titles such as “Spore”, rather than the film tie-ins and sports andracing franchises for which it is best known, illustrates the way in which gaming is maturing as a medium.“Spore” (pictured) is the creation of Will Wright, one of the industry's most talented designers, whoseprevious hits include “SimCity” and “The Sims”.
But it remains to be seen whether its unconventionalgameplay will match the commercial success of his previous games.Although it can pay the bills with franchises such as “Madden”, “FIFA” and “Need for Speed”, and film tieins including “Harry Potter”, EA has recently stepped up its efforts to develop its own titles. The triggerwas a crisis two years ago, when overworked developers filed a class-action suit against the company. Inthe discussions that followed to resolve the problem, EA learnt that its developers most enjoyed workingon original titles.
Feedback from customers also showed that they preferred such titles to film tie-ins. NickEarl, the general manager of EA's Redwood Shores development studio, says the shift towards moreoriginal titles has improved morale. “Coming out on the other end, we're a better company for it,” hesays.The third area where EA and its rivals expect rapid growth is in online gaming. This can generate moneythrough subscriptions paid by players of multiplayer online role-playing games and through the sale ofdownloadable add-ons to console games.
But online revenues are still too small to make much of adifference to EA, says Jason Kraft, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial. “If they can execute on newtitles, and if PS3 sales improve, it should be a good year,” he says. And, as usual, what is true for EA istrue for the industry as a whole.Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.About sponsorshipAlstom v BombardierTrain warsFeb 8th 2007 | BRUSSELS AND LONDONFrom The Economist print editionSparks fly amid a railway boomIT IS not quite Boeing versus Airbus—yet. But France's Alstom and Canada's Bombardier, the two biggestmakers of trains, are slugging it out on each other's turf and trading accusations of protectionism.
Themud started flying in November when the Canadians landed a €2.7 billion ($3.5 billion) deal to supply upto 372 trains for the Greater Paris network of SNCF, the French railway operator. Alstom's boss, PatrickKron, accuses Bombardier of dumping, with a price 10% below his offer and 15% below that of Germany'sSiemens, the industry's number three. That Alstom has since been hired as sub-contractor for a third ofthe work has mollified Mr Kron not one jot.He returned to the fray in Canada last month by seeking an injunction to block a deal that the city ofMontreal handed without a contest to the home team. (Bombardier has its global headquarters for trainsin Berlin, but the parent company is a mainstay of Quebec's economy.) Mr Kron sought an injunction tostop the firm and the municipal transport officials from even talking to each other while he mounts a fulllegal challenge to the deal on the grounds that it breaks Canadian law.
“They get tons of money at homeand then use it to dump in the international market,” he says.All this sounds a bit rich coming from Alstom, which almost went bust in 2003 and was bailed out by theFrench government. The disastrous purchase of ABB's turbine business left it with dud products thatundermined customers' confidence; as orders dried up, Alstom started running out of cash. But, Mr Kronpoints out, the European Commission forced Alstom to shed divisions with a turnover of €1.5 billion as acondition for approving the rescue—and Bouygues, a conglomerate, has since bought out thegovernment's 24% equity stake in Alstom.
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