February 26, 2014 · 11:49 am

Getting Twitchy

You might have read recently about the deal between Comcast and Netflix.

English: The Xbox console with the S controlle...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today’s screed is not about that, but since part of the reason the deal came about is Netflix’s use of streaming bandwidth, it raised a question in my mind.  If Netflix is number 1 in terms of using internet bandwidth and is not making deals with ISP’s directly to serve as their CDN‘s (content delivery network), what other companies are in a similar situation?  Who are the top five contributors to internet traffic?  The answer surprised me and reminded me once again of an important business point.

You probably got the next couple on the list correct:  Google (which is YouTube), and Apple are numbers 2 and 3.  Who’s next?  Hulu?  Amazon?  Facebook?  Good guesses since they are all major video sites and do come after number 4.  Give up?

The answer is Twitch.  No, that wasn’t a command.  Twitch is a site that broadcasts people playing video games.  I’m sure you’ve had the experience of sitting around a living room while someone plays a video game.   This is just a bigger room.  A MUCH bigger room.  So big that Twitch recently hit one million users broadcasting each month during prime time hours with 45 million monthly unique viewers who watched, on average, 106 minutes of video a day.  That means each month, viewers watch 13 billion minutes of video.  With the Twitch app coming to the Xbox (it’s only been on the Playstation 4) one can expect that the number of “broadcasters” will grow and the number of people watching will as well.

There are more people watching programming on Twitch than are watching most cable networks.  I’m willing to bet that the audience for this is bigger than many broadcast programs as well.  How many programmers are sitting around thinking about how to take away the viewing not just from people playing video games but also from people WATCHING people play video games?  That’s the business point.  We can’t continue to think about our businesses in “traditional” terms.  Our SWOT analysis need to be much broader and contain a lot of “out of the box” thinking.  The threats are everywhere.

They call it “blindsided” for a reason!

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under digital media

Tagged as , , , ,

February 25, 2014 · 9:37 am

Salt Of The Earth

It’s TunesDay and time to pause from our work day to celebrate a bit of music.  Since it’s a business blog, work will be our subject today and the Rolling Stones will be our instructors.  There was a lovely moment during the concert following the 9/11 disaster during which Mick and Keith came out to play a song from Beggar’s Banquet.  It spoke loudly to the audience of police and firefighters as well as to any of us who have ever gone to work:

The “salt of the earth” line comes from the Bible, of course, but it’s the “salt” imagery which prompted the thought today.  Salt has always been incredibly valuable throughout human history.  Once people could begin to preserve food, they could begin to explore and travel long distances without worrying about having enough to eat or to go hunting or foraging.  Certain cultures used it as currency and although Roman soldiers were not paid in salt (they were given money with which to buy salt), it’s the genesis of the expression “worth his salt.”  People fought wars over it and many cities were built on mining, producing, and trading salt.  Impressive for something so common and inexpensive now.  Which leads to my thought.

In a time when technology has made productivity incredibly high, I think many of us tend to devalue work and workers.  Specifically, some managers believe that the people who provide that hard work are interchangeable pieces, common and inexpensive like salt.  However, it’s those hard-working people that keep businesses going.  To carry the salt analogy a bit further, when a dish lacks salt, the flavor isn’t fully developed and the dish lacks brightness.  When we devalue the labor force, our businesses turn out the same way.

Mick and Keith put it very well:

Raise your glass to the hard-working people
Let’s drink to the uncounted heads
Let’s think of the wavering millions
Who need leading but get gamblers instead

Given the economic crisis and part of the reason it happened, that’s quite well put, especially 40 years before the crisis occurred!  Regardless if you’re the chef or the cook, the boss or the intern, I’m raising a glass to the hard work you do today.  Who’s with me?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Music, Reality checks, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , ,

February 24, 2014 · 9:41 am

Rain Delays

I’m a fan of motor sports and yesterday was one of the biggest events in racing: The Daytona 500.

English: Cars coming the the line to start the...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Say what you like about NASCAR beginning their season with their Super Bowl, but the race generally lives up to its “Great American Race” nickname. Yesterday the rain came to Daytona and stopped the race a bit after it had started. In 21012, the race got delayed until Monday, so rain in Florida is not that unusual a circumstance (despite what the Florida Tourism folks would have you believe). Which of course got me thinking about rain delays.

When rain hits a live sporting event, many people are affected.  The broadcasters who have to fill the time with interesting programming so they don’t lose their audience.  The athletes who have to maintain their mental focus and stay physically loose until they can get back into competition.  The facility which has to handle an influx of fans who have nothing to do but eat and drink while they wait and expect the concession stands to be able to handle the increased traffic without a hitch.  I was always amazed during my years in sports broadcasting how well the producers and crew had prepared for the rain.  Not just the programming they had ready but also how the crew had the proper rain equipment to function without a hitch.  Which is the business point.

Every business faces rain delays.  Clients who ask you to come to a meeting to do a deal but whose lawyers suddenly have a bunch of new issues.  Vendors who didn’t get a shipment of product in from overseas and who, therefore, can’t replenish your inventory.  Then there are the literal rain delays that cause construction to be behind schedule.  The analyst who is very good but who takes FOREVER to get you critical numbers (better known as a human rain delay).

We can’t control the weather.  We can only control our preparation and how we deal with it.  Champions are the ones who keep their focus and proceed as if the rain had never happened.   Are you ready for that?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Helpful Hints, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , ,