Posts tagged service

Verizon-Redbox deal adds to online video choices – seattlepi.com

By on February 7, 2012

A new Internet streaming venture built around Redbox’s DVD-rental kiosks adds to a crowded field of online video-viewing services dominated by Netflix.

In announcing the new venture Monday, Verizon Communications Inc. and Redbox’s parent company, Coinstar Inc., did not say what types of content will be available or how much the service will cost when it starts in the second half of this year.

But executives did say the service will bundle streaming and DVDs, which Redbox currently rents through its ubiquitous red kiosks in supermarkets, drug stores and other places around the U.S.

It’s likely that any plan from the new, still-unnamed venture will be cheaper than the minimum $16 a month that Netflix customers now pay to get both DVDs and online streaming access to a vast trove of movies, TV show episodes and original programming. It’s also likely that the new venture won’t have as extensive a selection as Netflix now does.

Companies such as Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., as well as cable companies and TV stations themselves, already offer a variety of ways to catch TV show episodes and movies using Internet-connected devices.

Here are details on some of them:

? Amazon’s Instant Video

Amazon’s service offers thousands of movies and TV show episodes for online rental. Rental prices are generally $1 to $5. There is no monthly subscription plan, so this option is best if you’re looking for an a la carte plan that lets you pick what you want to watch.

Amazon offers free streaming of some of its content to members of its $79-per-year Prime program, which also offers free two-day shipping and discounts on next-day shipping.

With Amazon, you can stream movies and shows on computers or on TV sets using a compatible, Internet-connected device such as a Blu-ray player or a set-top box from the likes of Sony, Panasonic, TiVo or Logitech.

? Apple iTunes

Renting movies through Apple’s iTunes is another pay-per-view option to access the latest movies or TV shows. You can rent regular or high-definition flicks and watch them on an iPhone, iPad, computer or TV set using an Apple TV set-top box.

Apple lets you rent first-run, high-definition movies the day they come out on DVD for $5 each, though most movies cost $3 or $4. TV shows are generally $1. You can watch rentals for a day or two from when you start playing them.

As with Amazon, renting movies through Apple is a good option if you want the latest releases as soon as possible.

? Blockbuster

The on-demand service from this movie rental pioneer lets customers rent or buy movies and TV shows and watch them through their TV, Blu-ray player, digital video recorder, mobile phone or other gadget. There are no monthly fees.

Renting ranges from fee for a small amount of content to “$2.99 or less” and “$3 or higher” depending on the movie or show.

Separately, Blockbuster also offers access to its (at)Home service for customers who sign up for satellite-TV services from Dish Network Corp., its parent company. The (at)Home service includes streaming movies as well as DVDs by mail. It is included for three months for new Dish customers who sign up for the service. After that, it’s as low as $10 a month.

? Cable

Cable TV providers such as Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. offer on-demand options to their monthly subscribers. Time Warner charges $3 or less for older movies, more for new releases. Other cable TV companies have similar pricing. Movies are sometimes free, including those that come with a subscription to HBO or other premium channels.

Of course, you need monthly cable service, which generally runs about $70 per month.

? Hulu and Hulu Plus

The service owned by the parent companies of broadcasting networks ABC, NBC and Fox offers thousands of TV show episodes and movies to its viewers.

Besides a free option, Hulu Plus subscribers can pay $8 per month for more content, high-definition viewing and access on the iPad and newer-model iPhones, as well as video game consoles and high-end TV sets from Samsung, Sony or others.

Hulu’s content skews more toward TV shows than movies, though both are available. It’s a good option for those looking to watch shows such as the “Daily Show,” ”Family Guy” or “The Office.”

Both Hulu and Hulu Plus show advertisements, though on Hulu Plus there are movies available without commercial interruption. Hulu is also delaying the availability of some TV episodes on its free service.

? Vudu, from Wal-Mart

Walmart.com offers streaming movies and TV shows through the website Vudu.com, generally for $2 to $6. Many movies are available for streaming a la carte, the same day they come out on DVD. There are no monthly subscription plans.

Source: http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Verizon-Redbox-deal-adds-to-online-video-choices-3078078.php

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Police converge on Occupy site in Washington, DC

By on February 4, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Dozens of U.S. Park Police officers in riot gear and on horseback converged before dawn Saturday on one of the nation’s last remaining Occupy sites.

Officers arrived and placed barricades around McPherson Square, a federal park near the White House where demonstrators have camped since October. They were not evicting the protesters.

Police said they’re at the park to enforce a National Park Service ban on camping. They were removing wood, metal and other objects from beneath a big blue tarp draped around a statue in the center of the park.

After months of tolerating the protesters and protecting their right to sleep in the park, the National Park Service announced last week it would enforce a camping ban. It took effect Monday, although police did not take immediate steps to break up or otherwise disrupt the encampment.

The Washington demonstration is among the last remaining Occupy sites, enjoying special First Amendment protections by virtue of its location on park service property. The regulations permit protesters to remain onsite at all hours with tents, but bar them from camping or laying down bedding material.

Dozens have been camped since Oct. 1 in McPherson Square, just blocks from the White House. Similar to the New York protesters, who strategically occupied a park near Wall Street to highlight their campaign against economic inequalities, the District of Columbia group selected a space along Washington’s K Street, home to some of the nation’s most powerful lobbying firms. Another group of generally older, longtime protesters laid claim to nearby Freedom Plaza five days later for an anti-war rally, then turned their camp into a second Occupy location.

The relationship with police has been generally peaceful, though a daylong standoff in early December over a makeshift wooden building that protesters had erected in McPherson Square in advance of the winter resulted in more than 30 arrests. About five dozen protesters were later arrested during a mass demonstration that shut down K Street.

Democratic Mayor Vincent Gray, who forged his political identity as an advocate for the mentally disabled, initially appeared to support the protesters. But any enthusiasm by city officials waned amid reports of violent incidents and, more recently, a rat infestation that alarmed the health department.

The encampment caught the attention of Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican who chairs the congressional committee that oversees district affairs. Issa questioned whether the protesters were permitted to remain for political reasons, which park service officials denied. At a congressional subcommittee hearing last week, director Jonathan Jarvis said the park service would enforce the camping ban soon, but that officials would encourage protesters to sleep elsewhere rather than evict them en masse.

The park service contends protesters are allowed to maintain a 24-hour vigil in the park. Jarvis cited other examples of long-running vigils on park service property in the nation’s capital, including a 1979 sit-in by farmers with tractors on the National Mall and an ongoing, 30-year vigil by one person against nuclear proliferation in Lafayette Square across from the White House.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-02-04-Occupy%20DC/id-e8bc48234b88401fa2c80a3805bf3487

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Thunderstorms, tornadoes possible in southern U.S. (Reuters)

By on January 24, 2012

(Reuters) ? Severe thunderstorms were expected to spread across several southeastern U.S. states on Sunday into Monday with tornadoes, high winds and large hail possible, weather forecasters said.

The potential for severe storms stretched from the Gulf of Mexico in Mississippi to southern Indiana and Ohio, according to AccuWeather.com meteorologist Bill Deger.

“Some of the thunderstorms are even expected to spawn tornadoes, making for an especially dangerous situation given the veil of night,” Deger said.

In Alabama, residents were bracing for storms that could hit after dark on Sunday or overnight with a strong cold front from the west combining with warm moist air flowing up from the Gulf of Mexico, said Mary Keiser, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama.

“The best dynamics for this are going to be across the northwest part of the state and lesser so as you move to the southeast part of the state,” Keiser said of the forecast for severe weather to strike in Alabama.

The weather service said thunderstorms could bring wind gusts up to 80 mph, tornadoes or gulf ball-sized hail in Mississippi. Farther west, the weather service warned of a high fire danger in Texas with wind gusts of up to 50 mph.

Weather.com said the greatest tornado threat appeared to be in eastern Arkansas, western Tennessee, northern Louisiana and northern Mississippi.

In Reno, Nevada, meanwhile, snowfall provided welcome relief to firefighters who were monitoring remaining hotspots from a blaze that raged near the outskirts of the city beginning Thursday, destroying 30 houses and prompting thousands of people to flee their homes.

“As long as we keep on getting snow instead of rain, it looks like we’ll be okay, at least for the next couple of days,” said Mark Regan, spokesman for the Sierra Fire Protection District.

Rain had threatened the area with flash flooding on Friday night. Emergency responders had the blaze 100 percent contained as of Saturday, and all residents have been allowed to return to their homes, Regan said.

In the upper Midwest, freezing drizzle was expected to make roads and sidewalks slippery from southeastern Minnesota into Wisconsin, changing to snow later Sunday, the weather service said. Up to 4 inches of snow was expected farther north in southeast North Dakota and west central Minnesota.

In the northeast United States, a fast-moving storm from central Pennsylvania eastward dropped up to a foot of snow in parts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts on Saturday.

(Reporting By David Bailey and Mary Slosson; Editing by Tim Gaynor)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120122/us_nm/us_weather

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Regulator overhauls fund to get broadband to all Americans (Reuters)

By on October 30, 2011

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? All Americans will have broadband access to Internet and telephone services by the end of the decade under new rules adopted by U.S. regulators.

The rules also reform a broken system of phone charges fraught with inefficiency and should result in $2.2 billion in savings passed down to consumers, the Federal Communications Commission estimates.

The FCC voted unanimously on Thursday to modernize its universal service program, aiming to help the 18 million Americans who have no access to broadband where they live and work.

The new rules will shift the roughly $4.5 billion in public money spent annually to subsidize telephone service for rural families to high-speed Internet in rural America and costly-to-serve areas.

Challenging terrain, long distances from existing networks and low population density are among the factors creating gaps in infrastructure as broadband providers consider these areas not profitable to serve.

“We are taking a system designed for the Alexander Graham Bell era of rotary telephones and modernizing it for the era of Steve Jobs and the Internet future he imagined,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said at the agency’s open meeting.

Broadband buildout to unserved areas could begin in early 2012 under the plan, bringing high-speed Internet to hundreds of thousands of homes in the near term.

The plan approved on Thursday would phase out funding for landline phone service over a period of years as companies move to a competitive bidding process for securing funds for broadband.

Companies now receiving phone service subsidies would get first dibs in some areas to receive support for deploying broadband service.

The rules will also reform the complex system of payments among carriers called intercarrier compensation, gradually reducing per-minute intercarrier compensation charges.

The FCC earlier in the year proposed modernizing the $8 billion universal service fund — paid for through fees added to consumers’ telephone bills — to spur infrastructure investment while removing inefficiencies in the program.

The new rules overhaul the largest portion of the universal service program to directly support fixed and mobile broadband while phasing out spending on duplicative services offered by several phone companies serving the same area.

The new Connect America Fund created by the rules will have a firm $4.5 billion a year budget, the first budget constraint ever imposed on the program.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said the fund will not be able to exceed its annual $4.5 billion cap through 2017 without agency approval.

“It is my hope that competitive forces will flourish and the development of new technologies will create additional efficiencies throughout the system,” McDowell said.

He added that such advances should substantially diminish the need for subsidies in this area, and perhaps the day would come when Congress could deem no support is necessary.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111027/wr_nm/us_fcc_usf_reform

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A Risky Move by Netflix ? Building Strong Brands

By on September 22, 2011

Netflix today announced that it was splitting the company into two business units operating under two different brand names. The internet video streaming business will retain the Netflix name. The traditional DVD business will now be called Qwikster.

You can read the email CEO Reed Hastings?sent?to current Netflix customers?at the end of this post.

This is an unexpected and risky move.

The logic on the surface is reasonable enough. Streaming and DVD rentals are very different businesses, with distinct consumer benefits and competitive sets. With this in mind, having focused, differentiated brands in each space is the ideal approach, so each brand can own a particular point of difference.

In addition, with two different businesses and brand names, it is possible to sell or spin-off the different units. It might also be easier to negotiate deals for content.

I am a big believer in brand portfolios so this move?should seem like a winner. But I am concerned.

The biggest problem is that the traditional DVD business may take a significant hit. Netflix customers are already dealing with a sharp price increase. Now many will be losing the Netflix brand.

This isn?t a small issue. The Netflix brand has enormous appeal; the company provides great service and has very loyal customers. Qwikster is a new, unknown brand. Many people won?t like moving from Netflix to Qwikster, even if the service doesn?t change at all. The brand matters.

It isn?t clear that Netflix will thrive in streaming, either, since?the streaming selection is somewhat limited, at least for now.

Combined, Netflix had a strong offering; the DVD service had great selection but was slow, the streaming service was fast but had limited selection. Consumers could use both options, matching the service with the situation.

If Netflix isn?t able to expand streaming offerings quickly, the company may find itself with a struggling steaming service and a fading DVD business.

This is a risky time indeed.

?

?

Dear ,

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn?t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something ? like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores ? do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn?t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

So here is what we are doing and why.

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

It?s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to ?Qwikster?. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name ?Netflix? for streaming.

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com?to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com?websites will not be integrated.

There are no pricing changes (we?re done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that lovely red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be similar for many of you.

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

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This entry was posted on September 19, 2011 at 10:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://strongbrands.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/a-risky-move-by-netflix/

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