Two recent blog posts that caught my eye:
- Dave Winer says that a plummeting Google stock price will be the surest sign that the web 2.0 bubble has collapsed. Seems plausible to me — nothing lasts forever, right? But it’s not all going away. Sure, there are people who think that learning to use the Google Maps API constitutes a meaningful contribution to society, and they are in for a rude awakening. But Google will still be around, as will Yahoo, as will well-developed Javascript technologies and the open-API concept that have powered Web 2.0.
- On the other hand, this Mark Cuban post is dead wrong. Cuban argues that the growth of HDTV and simultaneous lack of hi-def outputs on PCs means that downloadable video will be unable to power our home entertainment centers, preserving the status quo distribution system. This is really dumb.
Apple’s iTV isn’t yet released, but it’s aimed at solving exactly the problem Cuban describes — and, like so many Apple products, will get us all used to a new way of interacting with technology (just in time for cheaper competitors to swoop in). Soon enough we’ll all get cheap(ish) network appliances with HD outputs that can stream video wirelessly from our PCs — either from shared drives, or from DRM-preserving server applications that we’ll leave running on our desktops.
Initially these boxes will be standalone devices, but soon enough the functionality will be integrated into DVD players or cable boxes or stereo receivers — just like Tivo’s revolutionary DVR functionality has been. In fact, you don’t have to wait for the iTV to see this happen: you can already see the low-end version on on the Xbox 360, the high end in devices like this, and the midrange option here.
Sure, we might have to wait for 802.11n to reliably stream 1080p HD content. And I have no idea whether the tech will end up residing in your DVD player, cable box, TV or receiver — at the moment I’d say the DVD player, since it’s mostly cheap DVD players from Asia that have brought DivX playback to the living room. But then, that’s what I said the last time, and I was dead wrong (Dolby decoding chipsets are now expected to live in the receiver). Plus, the need to preserve DRM makes partnerships between large online media vendors like Apple, Microsoft and (soon) Walmart and players like Comcast seem pretty likely. So maybe it’ll be your cable box that does the streaming. Beats me.
But although the specifics are a little hazy, I am completely sure that Cuban is wrong about this. Downloadable video is going to be coming to the living room — and in hi-def — a lot sooner than he thinks. Thanks to Xbox Media Center it’s already present in mine. I just don’t have a TV that can display it.