MaxxoMedia Digital Media and Entertainment Trends

By Mark Levy CEO MaxxoMedia

The Camera and Imaging Products Association announced today that growth in digital camera shipments by Japanese makers in 2007 is expected to slow to 7.5 percent from a year earlier, when lower prices and a wider variety of models with interchangeable lenses spurred growth to 22 percent. The association did not provide any indication of why the slowdown will occur, but a likely culprit is the increase in sales of mobile camera phones. Projected shipments for camera phones by 2009 is over 900 million units.

A recent study by the Consumer Electronics Association says that 9% of pictures taken today are taken with a camera phone. So far, people seem to be switching between their camera phone and digital camera — taking photos at different times with different cameras.

However, this might change. The article says Tim Herbert, senior director of market research at CEA, predicts that as camera phones improve with three megapixel (and better) resolution, better storage and additional features, more people might use only camera phones for taking photos.

The CEA says the biggest area for growth in the digital still camera market will be products with six to seven megapixels. Digital camera manufacturers will, of course, continue to add features, such as image stabilization, better lenses, wireless options and photo/video sharing.

Pictures at Hand Ocotber 2006 Worldwide camera phone report states that by late 2008 or early 2009, the cumulative number of camera phones shipped will surpass the cumulative number of both conventional and digital cameras shipped in the entire history of photography-and camera phones have been on the market for less than a decade.

Camera Phone Shipment Forecast
Source: IC Insights

More data points from the Reuters article.

Demand will continue to lose speed as shipment growth is expected to slow to 4.3 percent in 2008, and 2.5 percent the following year, the association said.

The Tokyo-based industry group also forecast shipments of digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) models, geared for professionals and hobbyists, will continue to show double-digit growth in 2007, but their growth too will slow compared to 2006.

This year, shipments of DSLRs are forecast to increase 13.9 percent to 5.99 million units, lagging behind a 38.9 percent jump in 2006 to 5.26 million units.

Canon and Nikon Corp. <7731.T> are the dominant leaders in the market for DSLRs, while newcomers such as Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial <6752.T> are also trying to expand in this segment as DSLRs are more profitable than compact devices.

Shipments of compact models, which have faced fierce price competition, is forecast to increase 7 percent to 78.9 million units this year, lower than the 20.9 percent jump in 2006 led by demand in emerging markets and the United States.

A third of frequent visitors to the YouTube video-sharing site say they watch less TV as a result of their online video habit, according to a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive.

Forty-two percent of U.S. online adults say they have watched a video on YouTube, with 14% saying they visit the site frequently. Of these, 32% said they are watching less TV as a result of the time they spend on the site.

“[YouTube] has really emerged as a major force in, and problem for, the traditional entertainment industry,” said Harris senior research manager Aongus Burke.

“Not only is YouTube using a lot of their own content to steal the eyeballs they want the most, the site has provided a launching pad to wholly new forms of user-generated video entertainment that are gaining popularity quickly.”

However, the survey also found that 73% of frequent YouTube visitors said they would visit less if the site introduced short video ads before every clip.

“Consumers as a rule are not averse to watching commercials online in order to catch an episode of a TV show they would otherwise miss,” added Burke.

“Yet those who are accustomed to finding and watching everything for free at YouTube may have developed a very different set of expectations for the site.”

Despite the hype, there are benefits to be had from TV carried over the Internet

by Johna Till Johnson

January 30, 2007 (Network World) — If you’re like a lot of folks, you’re probably thinking IPTV is just a tad overhyped. Service providers from AT&T to BT to India’s Reliance Infocomm have announced IPTV initiatives. Market researcher Dittberner Associates forecasts an IPTV services market of $12 billion in 2013, an increase from virtually nothing in 2005 (now that’s a long-range crystal ball). And Microsoft has been investing heavily in the technology — a sure sign that the hype-fest is at its height.

And the arguments favoring it seem singularly lame. Not that I’ve got anything against TV — on the contrary, I’m addicted to it. (C’mon, with 500 channels, what are the odds that somewhere there’s a Vin Diesel movie on?) But at first blush, it’s hard to see how delivering TV over IP makes it appreciably better.

Mobile video services, offered in Asia/Pacific countries for the past few years, have seen accelerating growth. Many Asia/Pacific mobile operators are investigating the potential of broadcast mobile video technology, where a video signal is broadcasted to all mobile phones with the decoding technology.South Korea and Japan are leaders in the mobile video market, and have already developed and held trials of digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) mobile video broadcasting in their countries, while other countries are experimenting with competing mobile video standards.

Many new regional subscribers were gained during the 2006 World Cup, when Japanese and South Korean mobile operators aggressively promoted the ability to watch short clips and whole matches using mobile video. Future events in the Asia/Pacific region, such as the 2008 Olympic Games in China, will be the catalyst for surges in mobile video subscriber and revenue growth.

In-Stat’s “Mobile Content Survey 2006″ gauged consumer interest and usage levels of mobile content in the Asia/Pacific region. Quantitative-based analysis of the survey results provides insight into usage levels, spending patterns, and a comparison between 2G and 3G subscriber’s usage habits. By integrating the survey analysis with market forecasts, In-Stat’s “Mobile Video in Asia/Pacific: Ready to Soar” covers the market for mobile video in the Asia/Pacific region.

The Associated Press reports on YouTube’s plans to share revenue with their users. Chad Hurley, co founder of YouTube said at the Davos Economic Forum that YouTube’s audience is large enough to “foster creativity through revenue sharing,” and will be starting a program in the coming months. No further details were given.

The market is ready – here’s where and how to get IPTV now.

by David Cotriss

If you’re in the market for an IPTV service and you live in the U.S., chances are two companies come to mind: AT&T and Verizon. And for the most part you’re right – they are the only two operators with (somewhat) significant deployments and a decent chance for success. If you live in Europe, however, you’re much more likely to be able to get IPTV now, with a larger number of operators having much wider coverage areas. Coverage in the U.S. is much more limited, and your chances of living in a service area are somewhat slim. Nevertheless, the market is ready and growing, and more customers are signing up every day.

Read the entire article at: DAILYIPTV.COM

Digital music sales are jumping.
New reports from two major research sources indicate that worldwide digital music sales are continuing to climb.

Nielsen SoundScan captured more than 675 million digital track sales worldwide in 2006, with nearly 600 million digital track sales in North America alone, up from 359 million in 2005.

The IFPI “Digital Music Report 2007″ estimates that worldwide digital music sales revenues doubled in 2006 to around $2 billion.

The days of the standalone digital video recorder are numbered. (That means you, TiVo.)

Yankee Group analyst Joshua Martin says the standalone DVR product category will cease to exist by 2010, “and its dissolution will result in the end of TiVo as we know it.”

More at Reuters

A total of 32 million Americans aged 12 or above have downloaded a full-length movie sometime in the past, according to a new study.

By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek

Jan 24, 2007 07:02 PM

The majority of U.S. online consumers do not believe downloading movies illegally from the Web is a very serious offense, a research firm said Wednesday.

A survey by the Solutions Research Group found that most consumers suffered from the “Robin Hood effect,” when it came to stealing copyrighted movies from online peer-to-peer networks. “Most people perceive celebrities and studios to be rich already, and as a result don’t think of movie downloading as a big deal,” study director Kaan Yigit said in a statement.

CEO says new U-verse service is working better than expected, and the company plans to push IPTV more aggressively this year.

By Marguerite Reardon
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: January 25, 2007

AT&T’s IPTV solution is working better than the company expected–and AT&T plans to ramp up deployments in the coming year, Chief Executive Officer Ed Whitacre said Thursday.

Whitacre commented on the expansion of AT&T’s IPTV service during the company’s fourth-quarter 2006 earnings call. By the end of the year, AT&T’s U-verse IPTV service will be available to 8 million homes, he said.

“Our fiber-to-the-node network is performing better than we had anticipated,” he said. “We’re getting better bandwidth both on the short and long loop links. And the customer feedback has been very good, outperforming what’s available from cable.”

So far, AT&T’s IPTV service is available in only 11 markets. And in those markets, it’s available only to a handful of subscribers. AT&T had said it expected to have service available in 15 markets earlier in 2006, but the company changed its projections toward the end of the year.

In what appears to be a security breach at Twentieth Century Fox, a YouTube user gained access to copies of episodes of their hit show “24″ and made them available on the video sharing service, before the broadcast airing.  Fox has served Google’s YouTube video-sharing service a subpoena demanding the identity of a user. But Google has a history of fighting subpoenas seeking the names of those using its services.

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/2ssbud (Hollywood Reporter)
http://googlewatch.eweek.com/index.html

Written by Arjen van Blokland; edited by the J@pan Inc staff (editors@japaninc.com)

Starting in April 2007, the Japanese Government requires that all new third-generation mobile phones support position notification functionality using GPS. The latest 3G-models of the three carriers indeed all come with GPS.
Time to take a look what location-based services are offered.

Back in the nineties, car navigation units were already a best seller in Japan. Graphical 3D color maps were already popular in Japan when European and American marketers were still of the opinion that their consumers were only interested in voice navigation and simple maps with arrows and street names. Like all major electronics makers, the Japanese have missed the recent navigation boom in Europe and the US where TomTom and Garmin have grasped a major share of the market with technologies that were widely available in Japan eight years ago. These technologies are now available in Japanese mobile phones – the latest KDDI/AU models even offer 3D color maps with GPS navigation.

Google is getting ready for a re-entry into video advertising. It’s taking its first steps by joining hands with some of the biggest names in the video industry. Google AdSense ads can now display music clips from Warner Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment.

During the next four weeks, Google will allow users to use AdSense in their websites and choose from a selected playlist of songs to play in their web site. These music videos will be accompanied with advertising.

Nielsen Analytics and Scarborough Research released a report stating that U.S. consumers who watch network TV shows on the Internet are younger, better educated, more tech-savvy and more affluent than the general population, making them a lucrative target for advertisers.

Dispelling fears that offering streaming TV episodes would cut into broadcast viewership and advertising revenues, “video on PCs and iPods actually is expanding the audience of traditional TV programs, supported by the fact that total TV usage was at a record high in U.S. households at 8 hours, 14 minutes a day during the 2005-2006 TV season,” the report said.

Among U.S. households with a broadband connection, 34% were in the 18-34 demographic, and 45% are 35-54. Members of these households are four times as likely to be college educated, and 28% have incomes of $100,000 or more.

These factors lead the report to conclude that Internet TV can create new revenue models for content owners.

“Such ad-supported models are uniquely adaptable to the broadband environment and are potentially superior to existing models because they can take full advantage of the digital environment,” said Nielsen Analytics general manager and senior vice president Larry Gerbrandt.

“With broadband streams, for example, fast forwarding through commercials can be disabled making it more likely the consumers will watch the spots and possibly interact with them.”