The Buffalo Blog

Mediaset sues Google

Interesting to see another big company dive into a costly YouTube copyright lawsuit without fully assessing the opportunities that may be at hand. Mediaset, an Italian media group is suing Google for 500m Euros for alleged "illegal commercial use" of copyrighted clips on YouTube.

While Buffalo in no way condones dodgy copyright dealings and thinks it’s wrong for others to benefit from other people’s hard work, Mediaset could really benefit from taking a more ‘laissez faire’ approach. In a similar vein to my previous post 'A word on music piracy' there are obvious unexplored avenues that could turn situation into a great opportunity.

As with most forms of Social and Web 2.0 media it can often be great marketing to simply let go of the message. Doing so in YouTube is likely to be the best policy. This doesn’t mean just giving in, rather attempting to turn a bad situation into something really profitable.

There are also numerous benefits to be had by doing this. For example: why doesn’t the company strike a deal with Google for instant click-through purchases where its clips are featured?

It’s also true that many YouTube users check out the latest trailers, view an episode of a programme or even listen to music before moving onto an actual legal and profitable purchase. In this sense the site becomes a showcase and ‘try before you buy’ mechanism, complementing rather than negatively affecting the company’s sales.

While the likely recompense for Mediaset, should they win the lawsuit, is large, the rewards could be much greater if they tried a more canny approach…

Cuil to cull Google?

News reports today on the launch of Cuil, a new search engine set up by a band of Google defectors, in a bid to challenge the domination of their former employer. Apparently Cuil boasts a page index three times the size of Google, but this unsurprisingly is denied by its big brother.

The first thing is that it’s great to see some kind of new life is still left in the search industry, where AltaVista, Ask, MSN, and Yahoo, while representing fair-sized companies, have still failed to capture a decent portion of the market. There has also been little sign of a challenge to the incumbent from these existing players – the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo deal, that could give it the scale and cash to mount a real challenge, continues to blow hot and cold.

However, while search mutineers obviously have the inside track on the invincible Google, it remains to be seen if they’ll ever be able to truly lock horns with such an established player. Technology and algorithms they may have, but Google grew up in a time where it was obviously far ahead of its rivals. At the time those customers demanding quality and relevant search results were there for the taking and Google took the opportunity.

Cuil is attempting to steal a march in what is a veritable monopoly in the search space. ‘Googling’ is well engrained in the mentality of today’s internet user and will be a hard habit to break – anybody fancy ‘Cuiling it’? So to have any chance of success Cuil needs to offer something substantially different and substantially better than Google – a mammoth task.

Whether a group of ex-Googlites have the scale, investment or the technical knowledge to do this still remains to be seen. For all we know they could be sitting on something that could blow the industry wide open, of they could just be another ‘me-too’.

What I will say, is that for an industry desperately needing some healthy competition, I wish Cuil all the luck in the world.

Bad Bloggers

Communication has taken a new turn in recent years.  The freedom to communicate with vast audiences has never been as great as it is today.  Businesses, governments and the public all have the access to platforms that allow them to speak to whoever they want, whether the audience like it or not!

There is now a growing trend of those who are now using these communication vehicles to undermine, belittle and in some cases attack other people.  These acts of libel are now creeping into the business sphere. Some online publications for example, have been experiencing high volumes of businesses posing to be rivals and posting pretentious, potentially damaging, blogs and opinion pieces. An example is IT Director, a respectable publication, that is now actually having to vet people who post articles or opinion pieces in order to ensure that they are actually the person who they claim to be.  This underhanded posting is clearly not cricket, however in such an unregulated arena as blogging who’s to stop them?

The media have highlighted the issue of detrimental communication backfiring on individuals.  The Times commented on how Tricia Walsh-Smith’s YouTube divorce campaign went against her when the settlement judge condemned her for humiliating her husband.  Of course the more these occurrences are brought into the legal limelight the more likely it is that bodies will attempt to regulate the social media landscape – this would be damaging for content and blogging in general.

If businesses are found to be misusing blogs, forums or various other new media communication tools then there should undoubtedly be heavy consequences. The problem is that without going down costly legal routes this is unlikely to happen. In the meantime social media users should band together and regulate for themselves. It is up to the reader to be vigilant and savvy enough to question supposedly independent pieces and to flag them up as soon as possible.  Businesses and individuals using these innovative forms of media simply to vent grudges or slander competition should be exposed for what they are doing.  Hopefully through this collective ‘policing’ of the new media landscape, social media can remain free from restrictive legislation without compromising the content.

A word on music piracy

News in the Guardian today reports on a government-backed drive to crush internet music piracy by targeting severe offenders parents.

The move, backed by BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali and BSkyB, will see stern ‘disist or face the consequences’ type letters dropping unhappily on to people’s doorsteps in hope of simply scaring kids out of the illegal downloading game.

Of course illegal music sharing is a bad thing and does lose the industry large amounts of money each year. However, I can’t help thinking that this is approaching the problem in the wrong way.

Yes the problem is rife amongst young people but generally this kind of thing is frowned upon in adult society. The result is that that kids usually graduate from the world of Bittorent and other P2P file sharing into the paying and legal world of marketplace of iTunes.

Microsoft has the right idea in this area – it actually uses the proliferation of illegal Microsoft software to inform its future strategy and seek out new markets. Growing use of pirated software in a developing country can then be developed into a paying and profitable customer base.

Adopting a policy of fear to get kids out of illegal music, rather than turning the situation into an advantage, runs the future risk of losing possibly long-term and lucrative customers.

TiVo lost in the Amazon jungle?

An interesting Slashdot post today notes a new deal struck between Amazon US and TiVo (the popular US advert-zapping set top pox much maligned by the advertising community). Rather than partnering to deliver video content from Amazon or something similarly innovative, it seems that TiVo has sold its soul doing a full circle and become a product pushing device in its own right.

The deal it appears is to serve up instantly buyable merchandise around certain top US shows so that viewers can watch and buy right away. Of course this is better than simple scattergun advertising but will TiVo users see it this way? After all, they bought the box to escape from adverts only to find themselves being served adverts through the very same device.

I have heard chatter about some new and more exciting developments in the IPTV advertising space. One such example is being able to provide targeted ads alongside web delivered content relating to their content and previous purchasing tastes. Such a service could technically serve different ads to different people even thought they were using the same IPTV service and watching exactly the same show.

This is a great idea and is likely to garner greater response and be much less intrusive than traditional methods. However, the way this kind of IPTV ad is delivered and the data used to target consumers obviously will have to be implemented smartly to avoid flak from internet privacy advocates.

Either way, surely this is where the market should be looking? Somewhere infinitely more effective than an advertising killer starting to provide adverts..

A shift in power as Vodafone shares plummet?

Vodafone has lost almost £11 billion from its stock as it begins to feel the pinch of the economic slowdown. After the company announced a revision in its revenue forecast, shares fell by move than 13 percent.

While Telefónica SA, the parent company of O2 also lost around 7 percent of its own value, it may still be in a stronger long-term position. The most oblivious advantage is its proprietary deal with Apple, bringing the iPhone to the UK and Spain and 14 other countries as sole vendor. Evidence of strategic success came with great initial iPhone sales and its posting of a 22 percent increase in net profits for Q1 this year.

It might be said that Vodafone has spread itself too thinly with recent purchases in Ghana and a huge joint investment in Alltel ($21.8bn). Indeed, the Times reports that "Vodafone’s revenue growth in emerging markets and the Pacific region slackened from 12.6 per cent in the previous quarter to 9.2 per cent". However, investments in fast growing areas like India could still pay off and turn things around.

While it’s clear that the sudden slump has knocked confidence across the sector, it remains to be seen what long term implications these two very different companies and their very different business models will have for the telecommunications market as a whole.

Telegraph turns the tide with Google Apps

The Telegraph’s decision to use Google Apps over standard Microsoft Office products is a sign of the times for the business computing industry. Though The Telegraph cited this move as a cost saving exercise it could encourage other large companies to rethink their DTP and business application provision.

Also, at a recent National Outsourcing Association, whom we work for, conference someone posed that open-source and web-delivered SaaS type applications are the biggest competitive force currently facing Microsoft. With the first high-profile endorsement of this type of application model by The Telegraph, this is highly likely to be true.

However, although it is obviously a worrying time for the computing giant, it could be a real opportunity if the company manages to change its mindset quickly enough. At this ‘turn of the tides’ for the industry, the old adage "If you can’t beat them, join them" is very important.

Microsoft has dominated business and indeed personal computing for such a long time its move towards open source and web delivery has not hugely apparent. The trouble is that 21st century isn’t about IP any more as its security simply can no longer be guaranteed. It’s also not about discrete, packaged software products that can be sold on DVD to captive audiences.

No, the new world is in open source technology, about being better than the rest and putting it out there for all the world to see, use and alter to their needs. The value of company-created software is in its quality, innovation and skill – something that Microsoft has in buckets.

My advice, for what it’s worth, is to take full advantage of open source and invest more time and money in this area, rather than try to compete with it. To do this Microsoft should first unleash those great minds it has stashed away in Silicon Valley and dive whole heartedly into open source. The rewards of doing this could be great, while the consequences of not doing so really don’t bear thinking about.

A giant leap for BT; a medium-sized step for the internet

A giant leap for BT; a medium-sized step for the internet

Just weeks after Ofcom’s announcement that it plans to back up companies that need to make ‘risky investments’ in next-generation broadband networks, BT has confirmed itself as the first on the scene. The announcement? That it plans to invest £1.5bn in the rollout of fibre optic networks to 10 million homes by 2012.

While the timeframes of the move means that the man on the street may not see the benefits of the move for some time, the announcement will be celebrated widely and rightly so.

The UK is currently lagging behind many other countries on network infrastructure but has a burgeoning music download and IPTV industry. These companies increasingly use more and more of the UK’s limited available bandwidth. As a result, iPlayer (mentioned in the BT announcement release), Joost, 4OD, Kangaroo (if it makes it through competition investigations) are all on course for a collision in the fight for bandwidth.

Ofcom’s support and BT’s move couldn’t have come at a more fortuitous time. While fairly late in the day where Europe is concerned, this move will do much to kickstart further investment in infrastructure from those telcos and ISPs that don’t want to be left behind in the fibre optic stakes.

The move is also the first step in shifting the super size brick that looms ominously on the horizon of IPTV providers, paving the way for next generation web services. Streaming personalised music stations comprehensive on-demand video, increased take-up of online ‘games’ such as Second Life and Google lively and many other services that require a lot of bandwidth should all result.

While we could be talking years for some of these developments it should be an exciting time for the internet as a whole.

Media Moogles – Google media domination

The Guardian’s Media 100 was released yesterday filled with the big and bright of the ‘media’ industry (if the expanding and multifarious industry can still feasibly be categorised into such a neatly fitting box). Predictably, and I’d infer, by a long way, Larry Page and Sergey Brin made number one spot of all powerful new media gurus.

The achievements of the ever-expanding Google entity alone should be enough to secure this accolade, however, there is something that puts Google so far ahead in these rankings that it is almost scary to think about.

Google has rapidly managed to go from innovative, quirky ‘new media’ start-up to what is, the living, breathing and evolving centre of the web. Indeed it is reported that 70% of all web traffic is now directed via Google searches. This empire has been created with only the smallest whiff of anti-competitive investigation even though the company does have what is unquestionably a monopoly of the search industry. It’s clear that Google developed just too quickly for anyone to notice.

The fact is, Google now dictates whether your company exists or not online; being hidden from Google means being hidden from the world and almost all of your customers. Ask yourself, would you go to the second page of a Google search for a casual search term? Would you continue searching for a company if you couldn’t find them via Google in a few minutes? Very few people will take the time to consult a phone directory or call 118 if they’re just doing an initial search. This means if you’re dead to Google, your dead to the internet.

This uninhibited dominance of search has to be the real reason behind the Google top spot and will continue to be so for some time. Sergey and Larry’s invincible position in the Guardian Media rankings would really need something as industry changing as Google itself to ever truly dethrone them.

The company now owns almost all online visibility and companies that don’t realise this will lose interest, lose clients and ultimately, lose themselves in the age of Google.

Ebay And Tiffany’s Showdown Over

A court in New York ruled today that Ebay could not be held responsible for policing the contents of its site, and that it was Tiffany's role to draw fake designer jewellery to the auctioneer's attention. This ruling comes after a Paris court decided that Ebay had to pay Louis Vitton Moet Hennessy Group (LVHM) 38.6m euros, which had Ebay and e-commerce supporters shaking in their boots.

So where does this put Ebay and other consumer led business practices? Well essentially Ebay is merely offering a forum for consumers to trade their goods, and Ebay themselves claimed the ruling to be a ‘Victory for consumers’. Indeed it appears, unsurprisingly, that this is soley consumer driven and people like the idea of having imitation products for a fraction of the ‘real thing’ price.

For businesses such as Tiffany’s and LVHM to simply pass blame onto a third party for counterfeit products may not be entirely justified. However Ebay is not blameless. Although they see themselves as a consumer dictated organization, that always wants the best for it’s customer, they are relatively quick to turn their backs on victims of fraudulent bidders or can be incredibly slow to deal with purchase disputes.

Is there a finger to be pointed? Well essentially, yes, and that finger could be pointed firmly at the consumer. We are all looking for that bargain or wanting to sell our junk for the highest price, and we know the risk we take when doing so. Consumers have created the market for counterfeit goods and ‘knock off’ products and essentially Ebay is providing the consumer with a service that allows them to purchase such items with relative ease, but of course at a risk.

We are seeing ecommerce such as this grow at an enormous rate. Businesses are realizing the power of consumer to consumer commerce and are capitalizing on this, take ,for example, mobile phone adverts that focus heavily on the ability to do your day to day Ebay trading on the move. Adverts as a whole are focusing on consumer driven promotion, for example the famous Dove Evolution video viral was merely posted on You Tube and the business could sit back and let the public do the work.

Today’s ruling does indeed put into perspective that e-commerce, in this form, is certainly not going to disappear and will probably continue to thrive. Consumers and businesses alike will have to take the rough with the smooth and realize that it’s really ‘everyone for themselves’!