Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Apple's Media Strategy: For All Those That Don't Appear to Get It

Daniel Eran at RoughlyDrafted Magazine has posted How Apples iTV Media Strategy Works which Apple telegraphed with the iTV in yesterdays Its Showtime event. Daniel doesn't address one of the chief complaints other bloggers like Paul Thurrott have which you can read in his thoughts on the Its Showtime event, which is DVR functionality.

I thought it was obvious, but obviously not. Microsoft and Tivo for example are trying to add computer technology onto the legacy TV distribution technology, be that cable or satelite based. Apple is trying to REPLACE two legacy content distribution systems, cable/satelite TV and physical media distribution. Not only that, but they are trying to blow up the standard TV business model. I think Steve Jobs hates subscriptions to content where you just rent and rent and rent. The philosophy of subscription rentals encourages gorging, its eat as much as you can, it doesn't make you think about how much you are consuming because the primary inhibitor to stop consuming is spending more money, which you already did, you better get your monies worth

I may eat my words at some point, but I truly believe Apple will never release anything with DVR functionality, why would you need a DVR when you can already get Season Passes to iTunes and download the shows. I think there are some very big holes in Apple's strategy which I will talk about in my Email to Steve Jobs.