PlayStation Virtual World Comes Alive

Sony recently rolled out its PlayStation Home service. There have been nearly 17 million PlayStation 3 sold worldwide. Sony is calling the roll-out a beta, meaning Sony is still working out the bugs. PlayStation Home has been delayed by over a year and includes the PlayStation Network which has been playing catch up to Xbox Live ever since it launched.

The 3-D social network which is also being positioned as a gaming community is the most photo realistic environment compared to Xbox Live and Wii network.

Sony just recently cut 8,000 people and are in tough financial position. They are in a difficult position in the console wars. Sony is in third place from a unit perspective, PlayStation 3 has lacked blockbuster game titles, and its online network is way behind Xbox Live.

Google’s Android Party Gets Bigger

Today Google’s Android party got a lot bigger. Fourteen of the world’s largest mobile phone and chip makers, including Sony Ericsson, Vodafone Group, and ARM Holdings joined the Open Handset Alliance and pledged support for Google’s Android platform. Almost all of these members had existing Linux platforms they supported. Its not surprising that they are interested in using a common Linux platform that is more standardized and easier to support. Not to mention the big G is backing it.

Flip Video MinoHD Takes HD Video Mainstream

First it was cheap HD TVs, then it was more and more HD channels on TV. Now the YouTube generation gets a device that will take HD video into the mainstream, the Flip Video MinoHD camcorder. This little device claims to be the smallest HD video recorder. The Flip Video MinoHD comes equipted with 4GB, capable of storing 60 minutes of 1,280×720 resolution (720p) video. Thats pretty compelling for a device that only weights 3.3 ounces and is ultraslim. The battery is an integrated lithium ion rechargeable battery which gives you about 2 hours of recording time. One of the obvious things it lacks is a HD output connection. It only includes a standard definition AV output jack.

The Flip Video MinoHD is definitely geared towards the social netowrking crazed genreation. With just one click I can upload my videos to YouTube, MySpace, and AOL. It includes FlipShare software that runs on the MAC and PC. HD recoridng is getting cheaper and cheaper. The Flip Video MinoHD, can be bought for around $200 and is a red hot gift for the holidays.

Netflix Xbox 360 Service Rocks But Needs Some Work

I finally got a chance to play around with the new Xbox Live experience and specifically the new Netflix app. Ever since Microsoft announced the Netflix partnership I was eager to see it in action. I have to say I was really impressed with this new service. But there were a few parts that seemed disconnected. 

The best part of the product is just watching movies. Netflix (NFLX) has standard definition movies and a limited selection of HD movies. I went on a 30 Rock marathon watching the HD version of season 1 and 2. The video quality was very good on a 1080p Samsung LCD. The speed of using the service was also impressive. Movies loaded fast and the navigation was pretty intuitive. But there were some areas that need improvement.   Read more

Google Three Hours From Antitrust Case

Sanford Litvack, the hired gun for DOJ, was just three hours from filing the formal antitrust compliant against Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO). In an interview with The AM Law Daily, Litvack says, “We were going to file the complaint at a certain time during the day. We told them and three hours before, they told us they were abandoning the agreement.”

The never-filed government complaint would have charged that the agreement violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. Litvack went on to say, “It would have ended up also alleging that Google had a monopoly and that [the advertising pact] would have furthered their monopoly.” Litvack clearly wanted this to happen, “Of course I was looking forward to it,” he says. “We felt pretty good about it, we felt pretty confident.” 

Google certainly avoided a near disaster but it was foolish from the very beginning to even pursue the deal. When you have over 70% market share in the search business, you already have monopolistic network effects that will make it nearly impossible for anyone to compete with you. Why bother locking up an extra 20% and awaking the sleeping giant, the DOJ.

Nokia Unveils N97 Phone

The countdown is finally over, we finally know what was behind the Nokia teaser Web site. The Nokia N97. Scoble calls it the ultimate Facebook device. Its packed with features including a 5 mega pixel camera, a large high resolution 16:9 screen, a touch interface with a QWERTY keyboard, 32GB of memory, Nokia is calling it the world’s most advanced mobile computer. Nokia is calling it the world’s most advanced mobile computer. The N97 will launch with a retail price set at around €550 ($693) excluding subsidies and taxes, phone to ship in H1 2009. Engadget posted an exclusive video.

Nokia seems to have created a lot of buzz or has really bad infrastructure. When I went back to the teaser site it crashed and gave me a server error. Nokia seems to have fixed the problem. The site now just redirects you to the Nokia World Web site where the keynote is being webcasted.

Nokia Teases New Product at Nokia World

How unoriginal is Nokia? They launched a new teaser website with a count down clock. Engadget is predicting Nokia will launch a major new product at Nokia World in Barcelona.

Robert Scoble is saying Nokia execs are walking around bragging that the blogosphere has no idea what they are going to announce. Engadget is guessing they will launch a touch device similar to the touch communicator that was leaked earlier. Whatever they launch I hope its more creative than their buzz campaign.

Consumers Wake Up On Black Friday

Shoppers were out in force this weekend. The start of the shopping season proved to be a small glimmer of hope for retailers. The run up to Black Friday is the equivalent of the Superbowl fo retailers. The media builds it up like the presidential election and the market uses if as a pulse of the economy.

According to MarketWatch, Black Friday sales were up 3% over last year, total sales were $10.6 billion. Today’s Cyber Monday is expected to kick start online sales of $29.2 billion according to comScore. This should make retailers cautiously optimistic but many retailers slashed prices expecting a bleak shopping season.

Asus Eee PC 1000H

The ASUSTek Asus Eee PC 1000H is a 3.2-pound, ultra light notebook computer, that is in the hot category of “netbooks”. Its very inexpensive coming in around $550 and comes with wireless conectivity built in. The Eee PC is built on the new Intel Atom chip which is optimized for ultra portable devices and allows the Eee PC to get up to 7 hours of battery life.

This emerging category of devices will begin to blur the boundaries of netbooks and laptops. Hardware will continue to become more powerful and more affordable and soon the form factor will really drive the differentiation.

Jerry Yang Steps Down

Jerry Yang’s return to Yahoo has been an utter failure. When Jerry assumed the reins in June 2007 it was hyped as the return of the “chief” Yahoo. The savior had returned, the one that bleeds purple would restore the company back to prominence. Boy were they wrong.

Unfortunately, the hype came and went. Jerry spent months trying to just figure out what Yahoo had become in the post Semel era. Is Yahoo a media company? or Is Yahoo a search and advertising company? I don’t think Jerry ever figured it out.

The botched Microsoft deal will go down in history as the worst played Texas Hold’em game ever played. Yang tried to bluff Microsoft to go all in for the low price of $47 billion. If Yang would have truly understood his business, he would have realized he had really no other options. Yahoo was/is being pinched by two titans with deep pockets and they are right in the middle. In the the high scale, multi billion dollar fixed cost business of search you are either fully committed or you are not in the game. Microsoft knew that Yahoo could not afford to get into an arms race with Google. Read more

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