Video on iPod: Superfluous or the Second Coming?

One advantage to writing for TMC is you get some intelligent comments once in a while. This reporter recently wrote a First Coffee column, with the observation that “Portable music makes sense because you can do so many other things while it’s on, portable video doesn’t because that’s all you can do.”

We’ll wait while you get out the stonecarving tools to copy that down. Done? Okay.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.

Here is where your theory falls down.  The huge and unexpected success of the Video iPod confirms folks want TV on their mobile device.  In fact, folks will pay per program.  In the cable + satellite world, pay per program remains a tiny, yet steady stream of income, dwarfed by subscription programming.

Turn next to platforms like MediaFLO, which combines those two successful modes [Video iPod + subscription] and I’ll bet you’ll see a steady uptick in subscribers [and profits] once the platform launches.  Current offerings trying to duplicate that mode are admittedly clunky [VCast, MobiTV].

Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not Music and Music is the Best ~Frank Zappa, Joe’s Garage.

My answer, any other comments welcome, I find it a fascinating topic and other intelligent opinion, dissent or ditto, is welcome:

Thanks for the note. Is that quote really on Joe’s Garage? Must be the later album, I’m only familiar with Act I, Acts II and III struck me as an unlistenable mess.

Well, I guess if we’re being technically correct my theory hasn’t fallen down yet, but there’s always time.  I said the jury was still out on the video-enabled iPod, and calling expert witnesses to my side I’d start with Piper Jaffrey analyst Gene Munster, who told Business Week recently that “the reality is that people don't want to watch video on their iPods. Video is a feature on their iPod – a distant second to music."

Indeed, as Business Week points out, the average video iPod owner has purchased just 1.5 videos. Seeing as how we’re still in the first twelve months of the product I’d put that down to novelty and experimentation that they’ve even done that well, two, three years down the road let’s see where they are.  The profits Apple’s (News - Alert) gotten from the TV reruns and stuff like that have been low, basically I don’t see it as a viable mainstream technology.

But hey, I’m also the same guy who in 1999 thought Cade McNown was the best quarterback available in the draft, better than those flash-in-the-pans like Donovan McNabb or Daunte Culpepper, like anybody’s ever heard of them, huh? Ten points if you can remember what team wasted its first-round pick on McNown.

David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims’ columnist page.

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